Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL WAR EFFORT.

LAY EVANGELISTS.

Petty-Officer A. P. Herbert: asked the Minister of Labour how many men of military age are reserved or exempted as lay-preachers?

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): The National Service Acts exempt men in holy orders and regular ministers of any religious denomination from liability to be called up for service. Lay evangelists who are outside the scope of this exemption, but who have been engaged whole-time since before September, 1939, by a recognised religious body, in religious work analogous to that of a regular minister of a religious denomination, are reserved by the Schedule of Reserved Occupations and Protected Work; they number rather more than 400.

Sir Percy Hurd: Does the Minister regard the Oxford Group as in that category?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir.

Mr. Mathers: Why does the right hon. Gentleman take that view, in the light of the fact that members of the Oxford Group are full-time lay evangelists and have been endorsed as lay evangelists by the Archbishops, the bishops, the leaders of the Free Churches and the leaders of the Scottish Churches?

Mr. Bevin: Within the meaning of the National Service Act and their liability to serve their country, I am not prepared to accept the Oxford Group as a religious organisation.

Mr. Mathers: I am asking the Minister why he does not accept this expert opinion.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir William Allen: Why this persecution of the Oxford Group?

Mr. Mathers: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Reply and the fact that it is felt that the Minister is making an unfair discrimination, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment at an early opportunity.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

Sir Herbert Williams: asked the Minister of Labour whether there is still a shortage of man-power for the nation's war effort; and why, during the month of June, it was necessary to pay £570,000 in unemployment benefit and £369,000 in unemployment allowances to persons, other than those in agriculture, whose qualification for benefit or allowances was their inability to obtain employment?

Mr. Bevin: The Answer to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The figures quoted by my hon. Friend are, in the aggregate, not much more than a third of the corresponding figures for June, 1940, and were further reduced in July last. They are due in part to the fact that industry is not yet so organised as to give completely continuous employment in all cases, and in part to the relatively small number of workers who, owing to domestic circumstances or other reasons, are unable to move to a district in which there is work available for them which they can do.

Sir H. Williams: In view of the last remark of the Minister, may I ask whether he will consider pressing upon the Service Departments the desirability of spreading out the war effort to a greater extent, if practicable?

Mr. Bevin: I am doing that.

DOCK AND RIVERSIDE WORKERS.

Sir Irving Albery: asked the Minister of Labour whether, under the new arrangements, dock and riverside workers who, in certain districts were largely unemployed, will now be fully utilised?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, Sir, subject to always having ready a sufficient labour force at the docks to meet ships arriving, and thereby facilitating immediate handling of cargoes.

TRADE UNION OFFICIAL (ALLEGATIONS).

Commander Bower: asked the Minister of Labour what action, either by way of legal proceedings or under the Defence Regulations, has been taken against the trade union district delegate in an important ship-repairing area, who is reported by the Select Committee on National Expenditure to have fined members of the union who work overtime without his permission, to have required exorbitantly high rates of pay when his consent is given, to have been primarily responsible for resisting the introduction of pneumatic rivetting to expedite repairs, and to have insisted on the retention of an unnecessary man in the squad?

Mr. Bevin: No action of the kind mentioned has been taken by my Department. I am not in possession of the evidence on which the Select Committee based these references in their Report, nor am I otherwise in a position to produce the evidence that would be necessary to support legal proceedings in a court of law.

Commander Bower: Seeing that these allegations have been made by an extremely important Committee of Members of this House, did not the right hon. Gentleman think it was his duty to investigate those allegations fully and to consult the Home Secretary, with a view to taking some kind of action?

Mr. Bevin: No, Sir. I am not aware upon what evidence the Select Committee based its conclusions, whether it heard the man, or what steps were taken. No name was mentioned.

Mr. Shinwell: Was my right hon. Friend himself informed by certain trade union delegates in a particular part of the country?

Mr. Bevin: I get a lot of reports. Whether that is the same delegate or not the Select Committee has not advised me.

Commander Bower: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to ignore the report?

Mr. S. O. Davies: Is not the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that there is not an atom of truth in the charges against this particular trade union official?

Mr. Bevin: I do not know the trade union official. I cannot go on hearsay.

Commander Bower: In view of the importance of the question and the complete

inadequacy of the Minister's Reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

BRITISH RESTAURANTS AND FACTORY CANTEENS (PERSONNEL).

Miss Cazalet: asked the Minister of Labour what schemes are in operation for training the necessary personnel for staffing British Restaurants and factory canteens?

Mr. Bevin: I understand that the existing colleges which teach domestic science subjects are supplying trained personnel for staffing British restaurants and factory canteens, and that, in addition, the Women's Voluntary Services have a scheme. My Department is at the moment considering means of supplementing the supply of personnel which is already coming from these sources.

Miss Cazalet: Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that sufficient is being done by way of training for this important work, and will he consider the setting-up of a proper Food Service Corps with the same status as other War Services now in existence?

Mr. Bevin: I am rather anxious to avoid this continuous setting-up of separate institutions. If I can co-operate with those which are already in existence and get the service, I think it is better.

RACING STABLE EMPLOYEES.

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Minister of Labour how many men and women are employed in racing stables connected with the steeplechase programme for the coming winter; and whether those so employed come under any category of reserved occupation?

Mr. Bevin: These statistics are not available. There is no reservation for persons employed in racing stables.

Sir W. Smithers: In view of the fact that some 600 horses which are not needed for the war effort and are not useful for the maintenance of English blood stock are now being looked after by these men and women, cannot their licence be revoked and they be put to more useful work?

TRENT GUNS AND CARTRIDGES, LIMITED.

Mr. Mander: asked the Minister of Labour whether the company, Trent Guns


and Cartridges, Limited, have yet decided to accord recognition to trade union organisation; and whether Mr. Claud King remains managing director of the firm, in view of the unfavourable comments in the report under the Industrial Courts Act [Cmd. 6300]?

Mr. Bevin: According to the latest information which I have, the answer to the first part of the Question is "No," and to the second part "Yes."

Mr. Mander: Does the right hon. Gentleman not intend to do something in a situation in which an employer is deliberately refusing to give recognition to a trade union organisation? In the light of the report, is it not necessary to take some very firm action?

Mr. Bevin: The Government are now considering what steps can be taken.

RETAIL TRADES (WAGES).

Mr. Higgs: asked the Minister of Labour whether it is his intention to exercise the powers conferred upon him by Defence Regulation 58AA to impose fixed wages in industries or trades which are not concerned in war production and in which there is no threat of disputes between employers and employees; whether he can indicate the need for the secrecy surrounding the deliberations of the retail joint industrial councils; and whether he will give an assurance that he will make no order imposing fixed wages in retail trades to the prejudice of the interests of small and family shopkeepers without prior notice to this House?

Mr. Bevin: Regulation 58AA does not authorise me to prescribe specific rates of wages, but does empower me to establish a tribunal for the settlement of trade disputes and to require employers to observe such terms and conditions of employment as may be determined to be, or to be, not less favourable than the recognised terms and conditions, both of which I have done by the Conditions of Employment and Arbitration Order, which applies to the retail trades as to other trades. The decisions of the retail joint industrial councils would be taken into account by the tribunal in appropriate cases arising under the Order but are not in themselves of compulsory effect. I am not aware of any special circumstances of secrecy in connection with the deliberations of the councils, which are voluntary bodies and regulate their own procedure.

Mr. Higgs: The Minister has not replied to the important part of my Question, in which I asked whether he would communicate with the House before making an Order fixing wages in the retail trades.

Mr. Bevin: It is clear that the decisions of the councils are not subject to, and are not embodied in, an Order, In the case of any retail distributer before an industrial court, the standard rates of wages laid down by these councils are taken into account.

Mr. Leslie: Is it not the case that the relations between organised workers on the one hand and organised employers on the other have become much better since these councils were established?

Mr. Bevin: I am rather proud of the fact that, after about 10 years' deliberations, I have succeeded in establishing joint councils for the whole of the distributive trades.

Mr. Thorne: If there is a dispute between an employer and workmen, would it not be a dispute within the meaning of the Act?

LABOUR RECRUITMENT, SOUTH WALES.

Mr. Daggar: asked the Minister of Labour what are the exact terms of the instructions issued by his Department, either at London or Cardiff, to the effect that no recruitment of men and women registered at the Employment Exchanges at Abertillery, Blaina and Nantyglo for employment at works in Cwmbran, Monmouthshire, shall be permitted; and will he authorise a cancellation of such instructions?

Mr. Bevin: In order to avoid unnecessary transport, recruitment for these works has been confined to Pontnewydd, Newport, Newbridge, Risca, Blackwood and Caerphilly. Under new arrangements which will come into operation on 21st September, it is expected that it will be possible to employ about 100 workers from Abertillery, Blaina and Nantyglo.

Mr. Daggar: Arising out of that Reply, is it not possible to give some assurance that a larger number of men and women will be recruited from the areas covered by the exchanges referred to?

Mr. Bevin: I will go into it, but it is no use recruiting people at too great a range from the works until transport is ready to carry them. It only causes disappointment.

INDUSTRIAL WELFARE.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement on the work of his Department in connection with the welfare of industrial workers outside the factory?

Mr. Bevin: I have prepared a memorandum on the subject, which is being issued to-day in the form of a White Paper.

DISABLED PERSONS (REHABILITATION).

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that we are now in the third year of the war, schemes of training and employment for those disabled in it have yet been completed; and when details of such schemes are to be announced?

Mr. Bevin: An interim scheme to assist the training and employment of disabled persons has been prepared and I hope to announce details at a very early date. As a preliminary step I have made arrangements, with the consent of Departments responsible, for the various branches of hospital service to start the interviewing of disabled persons who are about to leave hospital and who require help in regard to their employment prospects.

Mr. F. Anderson: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the question of the industrial training of such people, and will he have regard to the fact that there are many industries into which they might go other than basket making and things like that?

Mr. Bevin: Certainly. We are taking a comprehensive view of the whole of this question of rehabilitation, and I hope we shall be able to lay the foundation of a complete rehabilitation service.

Mr. Anderson: Does the reply include those who have been members of the Forces and have already left?

Mr. Bevin: Yes, certainly.

ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIANS (PENSIONS AND GRANTS).

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Assheton Pownall: asked the Minister of Pensions how many applications for War Service Grants have been received from officers up to the last available date, and how many have been sanctioned?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions (Mr. Paling): Up to 25th August the number of applications received from officers was 1,527. Grants were made in 577 cases, 42 cases have been withdrawn or lapsed, and 98 cases are still under investigation.

Sir A. Pownall: Could the hon. Gentleman say whether more publicity could be given to the fact that officers, as well as other ranks, are eligible for special grants, as the general impression appears to be that it is only other ranks which are covered by these grants?

Mr. Paling: Yes, we are of opinion that the small number of applications is perhaps due to the lack of publicity, and we are considering ways and means of giving it. We have already approached the welfare officers and the three Service authorities, and we are considering ways and means of using the Press and the radio.

Mr. Lipson: Are not officers discouraged from applying owing to the fact that only one-third of the applications made have been granted?

Mr. Paling: That may be true; whether it is so or not, I do not know. We shall have to make inquiries.

Mr. Ness Edwards: How are claims made by officers investigated?

Mr. Paling: They are investigated by officers of the Ministry.

Major Procter: asked the Minister of Pensions whether the principles embodied in the recent Determination of Needs Act for unemployment assistance will be applied to the assessment of parents' need pensions; if not, what difficulties exist; and what, in simple language, is the procedure to be adopted?

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has yet applied the principles of the latest Determination of Needs Act to awards of pensions to parents; and has he reviewed the principle in regard to the award of pensions in all cases of bereavement resulting from the war?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): Parents' need pensions have always been assessed by reference to personal needs, and no change is therefore


necessary to conform with the principles laid down in the Determination of Needs Act. I have, however, made several modifications in the rules for the assessment of parents' need pensions, of which the major one is to disregard the following items of income which, by Statute, are disregarded for the purposes of Unemployment Assistance or Supplementary Old Age Pension:

(a) Disability Pensions—the first £1 a week.
(b) Friendly Societies sick pay—the first 5s. a week.
(c) National Health Insurance benefit—the first 7s. 6d. a week and the first £2 of any maternity benefit.
(d) Workmen's Compensation—one half of any weekly payment.
(e) Superannuation—the first 7s. 6d. a week.
(f) Sickness payments under the Old Age and Widows' Pension Act, 1940—the first 7s. 6d. a week.
(g) The first £375 of "War Savings."

Any income received from the British Legion by way of a Prince of Wales' Pension will also be disregarded. The new arrangements will be applied as cases come up automatically for review or on application on the part of the individual concerned.

Mr. Ness Edwards: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the whole of the hardship grant is fully taken into account for the purpose of a supplementary pension, so that any decision of the hardship committee is entirely overridden by the Assistance Board?

Sir W. Womersley: I am concerned only with my own Department. I will leave the hon. Member to deal with the other Ministries.

Major Procter: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has reached any decision, and can make any statement, on the pensionable position of dependants of a serving man whose death is due to accident unconnected with enemy or our own action; and what, in such circumstances, is the position of the victim if he is only injured?

Sir W. Womersley: The question of "off duty" accidents of the kind referred to is still under consideration, and

I regret that I am not yet in a position to make a statement. With regard to the second part of the Question, a member of the Forces so injured would be treated for his injury by the Service in which he is serving.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he has been able to make any of the improvements in the provisions of the Royal Warrant for the present war which he foreshadowed on 31st July?

Sir W. Womersley: Yes, Sir; I am glad to announce that I have obtained authority—

(1) for making up to the full rate the reduced allowances at present paid for the first two weeks of home treatment in cases in which the treatment continues beyond that period;
(2) for granting constant attendance allowance to totally disabled women members of the Forces under the same conditions as for men; and
(3) for increasing the pensions of orphan children of women members to the rates payable to the orphan children of men, where they have hitherto been less.

One or two other points are still under consideration.

Mr. Dobbie: asked the Minister of Pensions the date on which his Central Advisory Committee last met; whether any future meetings have been arranged; and whether he has now given consideration to the question of regular meetings of this body?

Sir W. Womersley: The last meeting of my Central Advisory Committee was held on 18th June last, and I am arranging for the Committee to meet again at an early date.

Mr. Burke: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that ex-Private Greaves, 13000197, Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps, having served as a sergeant in the Lancashire Fusiliers from 1914 to 1918 was invited to rejoin in 1939, and, after passing seven doctors, fought in France, was in the retreat, and is now discharged suffering from tuberculosis, without pension, and that owing to his illness he cannot obtain employment and, being homeless, cannot obtain public assistance or admittance to hospital; and will he investigate this case with


a view to bringing it within the scope of the Royal Warrant?

Sir W. Womersley: I am looking into this case and will communicate with the hon. Member.

Mr. Burke: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how it is that in all. cases like this we must take the medical testimony when the man is discharged, even if it conflicts with the medical testimony, seven times as great, when the man is admitted into the Army as being fit?

Sir W. Womersley: The hon. Member is evidently not aware that I have already announced in the House that where a man is passed into the Army A 1, and is afterwards discharged on account of sickness, I can take into account that fact in dealing with his case.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE PRISONERS.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can now give the House the information respecting political prisoners requested by the hon. Member for Leyton, West?

The Secretary of State for India (Mr. Amery): On 1st July those serving sentences in connection with the Civil Disobedience Movement amounted to 12,129, including 28 ex-Ministers and 290 members of Provincial Legislatures. In addition, seven of the former and 31 of the latter were under detention. I am informed that the other particulars desired by the hon. Member are not available, and their collection would necessitate special inquiry from magistrates and police stations throughout India, for which I am not prepared to press.

Mr. Sorensen: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that these figures are very unfortunate in view of our present international position?

Mr. Gallacher: Why do you not open the prison gates?

VICEROY'S EXECUTIVE COUNCIL AND NATIONAL DEFENCE COUNCIL.

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has any statement to make concerning the resignations of Sir Sikander Hyat Khan and Sir Muhammad Saadulla from the National Defence Council; and whether Sir Sultan

Ahmed is still a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council and Begum Shah Nawaz and the Nawab of Chhatari are members of the National Defence Council?

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can give the House any information respecting the resignation of two recently appointed members of the Governor-General's Council; and what reaction the Moslem League has shown to his recent proposals?

Mr. Amery: There have been no resignations from the Viceroy's Executive Council. As regards the newly created National Defence Council, its main purpose was, as I made clear at the time, to bring the war effort in the Provinces and States, as well as in the ranks of commerce, industry and labour, into more effective touch with the Central Government. It was on that basis that invitations to serve were issued to and accepted by the Premiers of the four Provinces in which the normal constitution has remained in force, in their capacity as Premiers, and without reference to the fact that three of them were members of the Moslem League. The Working Committee of the Moslem League, convened by Mr. Jinnah, has since called upon members of the League, including the Premiers of Bengal, the Punjab and Assam, to resign both from the Viceroy's Executive and the National Defence Council, on the ground that they had associated themselves with a step taken without reference to and against the wish of Mr. Jinnah as President of the League. These three Premiers have complied with the request of the Working Committee, but as has been reported in the Press to-day the Premier of Bengal has resigned also from the Working Committee and Council of the League to mark his dissatisfaction with the action of those in control of the League. The Nawab of Chhatari had previously resigned from the Defence Council on accepting the post of President of the Hyderabad Executive Council. Begum Shah Nawaz remains a member of the Council. There have been no other resignations.

Mr. Ammon: Has not the Prime Minister of Bengal also resigned from the Defence Council as well as from the Moslem League?

Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir, that is what I said.

Mr. Ammon: How far has this been brought about by maladroitness of Government representatives, which have rather claimed as representatives of the Moslem League representatives whom the right hon. Gentleman has himself defined as independent members?

Mr. Amery: No, Sir, I think it was made perfectly clear, both by the Viceroy and myself, that the purpose of the National Defence Council was to bring the Provinces and States, commerce, industry and labour, into closer contact with the Central Government. It was, of course, essential, as is always the case in India, that on any public body there should be a reasonable representation of the two communities, and this fact, I think, was misrepresented by Mr. Jinnah in order to secure the resolution which was passed by the Moslem League.

Mr. Ammon: I am sorry to press this, but I think the right hon. Gentleman misunderstood the sense of my Question. There has been a statement that a representative of the Government claimed that these people represented the Moslem League, and that on that Mr. Jinnah had taken action.

Mr. Amery: No claim had been made by the Government that anybody has been invited as representing the Moslem League. A letter to Mr. Jinnah mentioned that the Moslem community was worthily represented, that is, represented in the sense that there was a reasonable proportion of Moslems to Hindus in the total. It was made amply clear that the basis on which these invitations were issued and accepted in the case of Premiers was as Premiers of their Province and that if they ceased to be Premier their places would automatically be taken by those who succeeded them.

AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY.

Mr. Ammon: asked the Secretary of State for India, whether his attention has been called to the difficulties placed in the way by the Indian Government of an attempt to start an Indian automobile manufacturing plant by refusing to release necessary machinery, and the provision of dollars to purchase the necessary material from the United States of America; and can the establishment of

such an industry be used in connection with the production of war potential?

Mr. Amery: The difficulties are inherent in the situation, and I cannot accept the hon. Member's suggestion that they are due to the Government of India. The resources which the establishment of an automobile industry would draw upon are fully required for the development of India's war potential, to which, unfortunately, the project in question cannot be regarded as contributing.

Mr. Sorensen: Are any steps being taken to develop this industry as a postwar industry, in view of the very great concern in India and elsewhere about the future industrial development of India?

Mr. Amery: There is no reason why those concerned should not take any steps they wish, provided that they do not at this moment draw on labour and material urgently required for war production.

ATLANTIC CHARTER.

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he has considered the implication of Point Three in the Eight-Point Charter signed by the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt in relation to India; and whether, in view of that declaration, he intends to take any further steps to implement the accepted principle of the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they must live?

Mr. Amery: I would refer the hon. Member to the Prime Minister's statement on this subject when addressing the House on 9th September.

Mr. Sorensen: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the very great dismay with which this statement was received throughout the country, and that, in fact, numbers of people both here and in India want to know why it is that the principle should be applied to other countries and not to our own in this respect?

Mr. Amery: The Prime Minister made it abundantly clear that the principles which actuated the development of self-governing institutions within the British Commonwealth are the same which underlie the Eight-Point Declaration in reference to other nations at the end of the war.

Mr. Sorensen: Does that mean that the people of India will be able freely to choose their own Government?

Mr. Amery: The declaration of August, 1940, made it specifically clear that it was for the people of India to frame the type of Government they want themselves. It also made it clear that as soon as agreement was arrived at on that point we should use our best endeavours to settle other matters in order to bring them to a conclusion.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Are Questions like this likely to help the war effort?

INDIAN FIGHTING UNITS (REST AND REFITTING).

General Sir George Jeffreys: asked the Secretary of State for India whether he is satisfied that adequate periods for rest and refitting are being allowed to Indian units, which have thus far been heavily engaged in the Eastern campaign?

Mr. R. Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for India whether arrangements are made to ensure needed rest for the Indian regiments which have done splendid work in the Near East, especially since most of the fighting hitherto in which these troops have been engaged has fallen to the same battalions?

Mr. Amery: I have every reason to think so, but this is a matter which the Commanders-in-Chief concerned must consider in the light of all their responsibilities. If my hon. Friends have any information bearing on the point, I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will give it every consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE.

MR. CAHIR HEALY (DETENTION).

Sir I. Albery: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Parliament of Northern Ireland has in any way signified its assent to the detention of one of its members, Mr. Cahir Healy?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): No question of any assent by the Parliament of Northern Ireland arises in this case. The responsibility for the detention of Mr. Cahir Healy under the Defence Regulation rests entirely on me.

Sir I. Albery: Has any explanation of the reasons for which this Member has been detained been given to the Parliament of Northern Ireland?

Mr. Morrison: The fact of his detention was reported to the Northern Ireland Parliament by the Speaker, and I have indicated the reasons for his detention in answer to Questions in this House.

AIR-RAID CASUALTIES AND DAMAGE (INQUIRIES).

Mr. Culverwell: asked the Home Secretary whether he will withdraw the instructions regarding air-raid casualties and damage to houses inquiries contained in Home Security Circular 116/1941 and revert to the former practice of the police dealing with such inquiries which is working most satisfactorily?

Mr. H. Morrison: No, Sir. The Circular merely gives guidance to local authorities on the carrying out of a reponsibility which was already theirs, and in my view it represents an arrangement which best meets the needs of the situation.

Mr. Culverwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the police have all the information which is required and have in existence the machinery for answering such inquiries and that that machinery is working perfectly satisfactorily, whereas local authorities will have to set up a new organisation to deal with these inquiries? Does he not think it better to leave things as they are?

Mr. Morrison: The general practice is that the local authority takes care of this part of administration. It is convenient for people to communicate to one recognised point in the locality the town hall. I think this is the most convenient arrangement, which ought to be on a national pattern.

INDOOR TABLE SHELTERS.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Home Secretary whether he is in a position to say if the demand for the table-form indoor shelter is being met; and when those who have applied for same will be supplied?

Mr. H. Morrison: The indoor table shelter is being distributed in as many areas as the supply position permits and allocations to those areas are made on the basis of the actual number of applications received by the local authorities


concerned. Allocations are keeping pace with applications and delivery to the local authorities is effected as soon as possible after allocation.

FIRE WATCHING.

Sir I. Albery: asked the Home Secretary whether he can make any statement concerning the new arrangements for fire watching?

Mr. H. Morrison: As a result of consultations with representatives of the Trades Union Congress and employers' organisations and other bodies interested, including local authorities, it has been decided to introduce a number of important alterations in the scheme for business premises. A new Order—the Fire Prevention (Business Premises) (No. 2) Order, 1941—has been drafted and an explanatory memorandum for the guidance of all concerned will be issued with the revised Order. On the coming into force of this Order the existing Business Premises Order and the Fire Watchers Order of September, 1940, will be revoked. Compulsory enrolment for part-time service with a local authority's Fire Guard is being put into force in areas in which the Business Premises Order applies and certain changes in the compulsory enrolment scheme are being made at an early date. It is impracticable within the compass of an answer to a Question to give details of the amended procedure to operate under the two Orders, but a public statement will be made in the course of the next few days.

Mr. Thorne: If there is a quarrel between the Regional Controller and the Local Controller, who is the deciding factor?

Mr. Morrison: The Regional Commissioner is top dog and, finally, I am.

Sir William Davison: Where the Business Order has not been put into force, is the new Order still to be made operative?

Mr. Morrison: No, the compulsory enrolment Order will not be operative in the areas where the Business Order does not apply. Areas where the Business Order does apply cover the great bulk of the population in all the vulnerable areas of the country.

Sir W. Davison: Does the new Order apply although it is not in force when enrolment takes place?

Mr. Morrison: No, enrolment does not take place in areas other than where the Business Order applies.

UNLICENSED MOTOR-CARS (IMMOBILISATION).

Sir H. Williams: asked the Home Secretary why the Regional Commissioner for South-East England has issued instructions in accordance with which it is necessary to immobilise unregistered motor-cars more rigidly than registered motor-cars?

Mr. H. Morrison: The object of the direction issued by the Regional Commissioner for the South-Eastern region for the immobilisation of unlicensed private vehicles was to ensure that such vehicles could not be suddenly recommissioned for purposes contrary to the public interest in the event of an invasion.

"WORKERS' GAZETTE."

Mr. Keeling: asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the "Workers' Gazette," the publication of which appears to be in continuation of, or in substitution for, the publication of the "Daily Worker," and whether he has taken any action against those concerned for contravention of Defence Regulation 2D?

Mr. H. Morrison: I did not fail to consider the question raised by my hon. Friend, but I do not think it would be right for me to say more than that any future developments will be watched carefully.

Mr. Gallacher: Would not the Minister solve this whole problem and save a lot of trouble and add very much to the production of the country if he were sensible enough to withdraw the ban on the "Daily Worker"?

NORTHERN IRELAND AND EIRE (BORDER TRAFFIC).

Mr. Keeling: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that, as lately as 18th August, the Ulster Customs House between Londonderry and Donegal was shut at 6 p.m., after which hour motorcars from Eire passed without challenge; and what action he has taken in the matter?

Mr. H. Morrison: The Customs authorities have, I understand, an arrangement by which motor-cars which are not carry-


ing merchandise and are not themselves being imported or exported as merchandise are allowed to cross the border at times when the Customs house is closed, provided they carry a pass designed to safeguard revenue interests; but vehicles crossing the border at any time are liable to challenge by special patrols, and the fact that it has not been found necessary for Customs purposes to have Customs officers on duty after certain hours does not mean that the question of security arrangements after those hours has been overlooked.

Mr. Keeling: Does my right hon. Friend mean that smugglers shut down their business at 6 p.m. like the Customs house?

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir; that is why we keep observation.

Dr. Little: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that, on the border between Northern Ireland and Eire, illicit traffic and the transmission of information useful to the enemy seem to increase, despite all efforts to bring them to an end; and whether he will adopt more drastic methods for dealing with this menace to the success of our war effort?

Mr. Morrison: There is nothing which I can usefully add to the reply I gave on 31st July to Questions on this subject.

Dr. Little: Is my right hon. Friend not satisfied that far stronger measures are required to deal with this danger, not only to Britain but to the Empire, to our success in the war and our security?

Mr. Morrison: If my hon. Friend has concrete evidence which supports the very general allegations made in his Question I think it is his duty to let me have it privately, but if he has not that evidence he ought not needlessly to spread alarm and despondency.

Dr. Little: My right hon. Friend can obtain full information of what is transpiring on the Border through the Press; he does not need to appeal to me for it.

LONDON REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS (STAFF).

Sir W. Davison: asked the Home Secretary the total number of persons employed in London Regional Headquarters for Civil Defence on 1st August, 1940, and 1st August, 1941, respectively; and the reason for the increase?

Mr. H. Morrison: The total number of persons employed in London Regional Headquarters for Civil Defence on 1st August, 1940, was 280, and on 1st August, 1941, was 551. These figures included 40 and 84 officers respectively who are attached to Regional Headquarters from other organisations. In addition, on the 1st August, 1941, 89 officers, although employed by the regional commissioners, were not working at Regional Headquarters but with local authorities and military units in the region. The increase in staff has been made necessary by the organisation, as the result of war experience, of new services such as fire prevention and the clearance of debris. In addition, there has been a large delegation of powers to the regional commissioners by myself and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health; in particular, the improvements in the provision, organisation and control of shelters have required considerable staff. My hon. Friend will not forget that in August, 1940, there had been no heavy raiding, and that since that date we have passed through a winter of blitzes. We must be prepared for another winter of heavy raiding.

Sir W. Davison: Is it not the case that the local authorities have full control and are responsible for all these local services, and that this central Regional Headquarters are mainly called upon to act only in a supervisory capacity? Is such a large increase necessary when they have so little active control?

Mr. Morrison: I am quite sure that this increase is necessary in the light of the events of last winter. It must be remembered that the prevailing feeling in this House has been that we must support the co-ordination of local authorities in the exercise of their duties.

Miss Cazalet: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most of us in London are very well pleased with and grateful for the splendid work that the London Regional Headquarters have done?

Mr. Morrison: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend, and I think her tribute is well deserved.

Sir W. Davison: asked the Home Secretary what is the total cost of London Regional Headquarters for Civil Defence; what is the sum paid in salaries; and how many of such salaries are £800 per annum and over?

Mr. Morrison: The approximate annual cost of the London Regional Headquarters for Civil Defence is £289,000, of which £202,000 is in respect of salaries. This figure for salaries includes not only the administrative and clerical staff but also technical and regional officers attached to headquarters with operational responsibilities. There are 25 officers with salaries of £800 or over.

Sir W. Davison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I did not intend in my Question to suggest any criticism of the splendid work done by the London Regional Headquarters, which is much appreciated, but is it necessary to have all these very highly-paid officers in addition to the staff which has done such good work in the past?

Mr. Morrison: I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for his explanation, but the fact is that there is a great deal of high grade operational work to be done at the London Regional Headquarters.

Miss Cazalet: Are there any women among the 25 officers?

Mr. Morrison: I cannot say without notice.

EMPIRE WAR COLLABORATION.

Mr. Mander: asked the Prime Minister the present position with regard to the formation of an Imperial War Cabinet and Dominion representation in the present War Cabinet?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on Tuesday last to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Granville).

Mr. Mander: Is not this a matter which might be well discussed with the new Australian Minister who is coming to this country shortly?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I think our conversations will range widely over the whole field.

POLITICAL WARFARE.

Commander King-Hall: asked the Prime Minister whether any steps have recently been taken to improve the co-ordination of the several organisations responsible for political warfare; and, if

so, what is the nature of the reorganisation?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Information and the Minister of Economic Warfare have been in consultation on the subject of propaganda to enemy and enemy-occupied territories. They have recommended, and I have approved their recommendation, that a small special executive for the conduct of Political Warfare should be established, in lieu of the various agencies concerned at present, which have done very excellent work, to conduct such propaganda in all its forms. This executive has already begun its work, but it would be contrary to the national interest to make any public statement regarding its personnel or the nature of its activities.

Commander King-Hall: I am obliged for the information the Prime Minister has given. Could he say to which Minister Questions should be put on the subject?

The Prime Minister: There can be no Questions on secret matters. On all other matters, to the Minister of Information.

Mr. Noel-Baker: To which Ministers will this body be responsible in a general sense?

The Prime Minister: The executive will be responsible to the three Ministers sitting together; but if those Ministers, who have different functions and who approach matters from different angles, do not agree the matter would come to me as Minister of Defence, and afterwards to the Cabinet.

Captain Plugge: Will this Committee be empowered to establish the special organisation and acquire the material so much needed for the expansion of our broadcasting system?

The Prime Minister: I am sure it will be able to make recommendations on these matters. It must not be assumed that nothing has been done.

Mr. Garro Jones: Where are non-secret questions sifted from secret Questions? Who is to decide whether a Question is secret or not?

The Prime Minister: A certain practice has grown up. In certain cases the Government are asked about matters which cannot be put on the Paper until the Question has been considered. In


such cases the regular practice of sifting Questions will be followed.

Mr. Garro Jones: Where is the decision made? What is the system? Suppose a Member desiring to put a Question feels that the Question has no secret aspect, will the Clerks at the Table be empowered to reject the Question?

The Prime Minister: The Clerks at the Table exercise the direct authority under Mr. Speaker. Therefore, I should be presuming if I were to attempt to speak upon that, but when I or other Ministers have heard of a Question which has been put down quite inadvertently by a Member who did not know what points would be touched upon, we have made representations, and those representations have been considered, under the general authority of the Chair. I trust I am not presuming.

Mr. Maxton: The use of the term "executive" raises this question in my mind. Is this body, which is to speak in the name of Great Britain, to carry on our political warfare, to be completely anonymous and unknown to the Members of the House of Commons?

The Prime Minister: The persons who do the work are anonymous, but the persons under whom they act are Ministers of the Crown, responsible to Parliament.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Will this new executive be able to deal with the housing and staffing of the foreign broadcasting service, the inadequacy of which has long been a scandal?

The Prime Minister: I think the answer is that the small anonymous executive will probably concentrate some of their earliest attention on this point.

Mr. De la Bère: What is the difference between a secret Question and an awkward Question?

The Prime Minister: One is a danger to the country, and the other is a nuisance to the Government.

MINISTER OF AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION (REMARKS).

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Prime Minister whether the remarks in the recent

speech of the Minister of Aircraft Production regarding operations between the Russian and German armies on the Eastern Front represent the policy of His Majesty's Government?

The Prime Minister: The versions which have been given to the public of the remarks made at a private gathering at the end of July by the Minister of Aircraft Production bear a construction which represents neither the policy of His Majesty's Government nor the views of my right hon. and gallant Friend. I happen to know what the views of my right hon. and gallant Friend were, because on the day when Hitler attacked Russia I told him on the telephone the line I was going to take that night of wholehearted support for Russia, and he expressed enthusiastic assent. He emphasised these sentiments in a public speech at Chertsey on 9th August. Moreover, my right hon. and gallant Friend has all the while been ardently at work, as I know from daily observation, sending hundreds of fighter aircraft- to Russia, many of which have already got there. Therefore, although the phrasing of what he said at the private gathering taken from its context might well be misconstrued, I am satisfied that he was and is in the fullest accord with the policy which His Majesty's Government are earnestly pursuing.

Mr. Shinwell: Has my right hon. Friend seen and read the correspondence which passed between the Minister of Aircraft Production, Sir Ernest Salmon and Mr. Blackburn, organiser of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, and, if not, may I send him copies of the correspondence? After having perused the correspondence, will he agree that the Minister of Aircraft Production, for his own sake and for the advantage of the Government, should make a personal statement at that Box?

The Prime Minister: I have, of course, read the correspondence, and I was astonished that anybody should have taken the mischievous action of making all this sensation, which does nothing but harm to Russia as well as to Britain and leads to suspicions between those whose fortunes are linked together. As to a statement by my right hon. and gallant Friend, he is, of course, welcome to make a personal statement if he desires, but I have assumed the duty of dealing with this matter.

Mr. Shinwell: If my right hon. Friend intends to rebuke those who have raised this matter—as apparently he does—without any hostile intent but merely for the purpose of seeking a reasonable explanation of the statement, will he take exception to a public statement being made quoting the actual statements made by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Minister for Aircraft Production and his admission that the statements were made?

The Prime Minister: I think it would be unhelpful to the general interest. That is my view. I have very carefully considered what I should say, because I could easily use arguments which would be quite effective from the point of view of merits for and against but which would tend to give an altogether disproportionate importance and significance to this matter. Therefore, I have forborne from quoting. I would also say that it is very inconvenient, and I think contrary to our way of carrying on our business, to found accusations in public upon reports of what passed at a private gathering at which no written record was taken—

Mr. Shinwell: What about the admission?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. and gallant Friend certainly said that he was sorry his words had borne that construction. So he is, but that was not what he meant, and I am satisfied that at the root of the matter he is with us heart and soul.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the Prime Minister aware of the deep and bitter feeling that exists among many trade unionists in factories—in almost every factory in the country—as the result of this, and will he not be prepared to assure the workers that he will take every step to clear out of his Government anyone who is not 100 per cent. in co-operation with the Soviet Union?

The Prime Minister: I do not think I should be prepared to seek guidance in matters of policy or conduct from an hon. Gentleman whose attitude has been notorious for his changed opinions whenever he has been ordered to do so by a body outside this House.

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I want to put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that as the representative for West Fife I have never taken orders from anyone outside

this country at any time. I ask protection from you, Sir, and demand the withdrawal of that insulting remark made by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has no right to make such a false statement. It is a dirty, cowardly, rotten action on the part of the Prime Minister, the action of a blackguard. It is a dirty lie, a foul, dirty lie.

Later—

Mr. Gallacher: Mr. Speaker, aftér very deep reflection about what occurred in the House earlier, I want to apologise to you and to the House for the offensive words I used after I had put to you my point of Order, and to make a complete withdrawal of the offensive remarks directed towards the Prime Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

BANK LOANS (INTEREST RATES).

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will now make a statement showing what has been done to reduce the average rate of interest charged to agricultural borrowers to a lesser rate of interest than 5 per cent.?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Carnarvon (Major Owen) on 19th December, 1940.

Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these problems will not outwear themselves and that some steps must be taken to find a solution? Is it not the case that up to the present the Government have been unwilling to make any concession in order to find a solution?

Mr. Hudson: There is evidence that our agricultural price policy has enabled the farming community to reduce its dependance on borrowed money.

Mr. De la Bère: But the interest is still too high.

LONG-TERM POLICY.

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in order to increase the confidence of farmers throughout the country, he will take steps, before the end of 1941, to announce the broad outlines of a long-term policy for agriculture, extending for a period of five years after the cessation of hostilities, especially having regard to the stimulus


that such an announcement would give to war-time effort and enterprise, bearing in mind the necessity of a reasonable guarantee as a solution to the many problems?

Mr. Hudson: In the reply I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) on 26th November, 1940, I stated that the Government recognised the importance of maintaining after the war a healthy and well-balanced agriculture as an essential and permanent feature of national policy, and that the present system of fixed prices and an assured market would be maintained for at least one year after the end of hostilities so as to ensure stability for a length of time sufficient to put into action a permanent post-war policy for home agriculture. The broad lines of such a policy are under consideration, but I can hold out no hope that a further statement will be possible before the end of this year.

Mr. De la Bère: Will my right hon. Friend tackle the root causes of the problems that led to the slump in agriculture prior to the outbreak of the war? Is he not aware that problems not tackled at their roots beget other problems and that our course then becomes encumbered with futile efforts to deal with these other problems?

FOXES (DESTRUCTION).

Sir P. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture what remedial steps have been taken by county war agricultural executive committees in view of the further destruction of poultry and lambs by foxes, of which details have been sent to him; and whether he will make it clear to these committees that they must exercise their powers to kill when the local hunts do not remove the pest?

Mr. Hudson: A number of committees have, in order to deal more effectively with the pest, been given compulsory powers under the Defence Regulations. I am prepared to consider the extension of these powers to any other war agricultural committee in whose area foxes cannot be successfully controlled through the local hunts or otherwise.

Sir P. Hurd: Has the Minister considered the facts given to him with regard

to work in one particular area? Have definite instructions been given to that committee to take action?

Mr. Hudson: I am not aware of the particular case which my hon. Friend has in mind, but if he will let me know about it, I will look into it.

Sir P. Hurd: I have already let the Minister know.

HARVEST CAMPS.

Sir P. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the delayed harvest in many parts of the country, he will arrange with the Board of Education for the continuance of harvest camps until the crops are garnered?

Mr. Hudson: My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education has, at my request, sent a memorandum to school authorities asking them to help by keeping these camps in being for a further week or two wherever possible and desirable.

STEEPLECHASE MARES AND GELDINGS (RATIONS).

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of steeplechase mares and geldings for which he has granted rations for the coming season; the amount of the daily ration of all fodder authorised; and the total weight that will be consumed in a six-months period?

Mr. Hudson: No rations have yet been granted for any mares or geldings for the coming steeplechase season.

Sir W. Smithers: When the time comes for the Minister to grant these rations, will he work out how many hens and cows can be kept on the rations which will probably be supplied to these useless animals?

NORTH LONSDALE RIVERS CATCHMENT BOARD.

Captain Sir Ian Fraser: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has received the names of persons recommended for membership of the Catchment Board for the North Lonsdale Rivers; whether he has approved of these names; and whether he will overcome, or circumvent, all statutory or formal delays and set this board up at once, so that work may be started without delay before the heavy rains and the frosts, with a view to preparing much derelict land for cultivation for next season?

Mr. Hudson: The appointment of members of the North Lonsdale Rivers Catchment Board has now been completed, and the first meeting of the board will be held on the 25th of this month.

DISPOSSESSED FARMERS.

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will instruct war agricultural executive committees that they should, when giving notice to a farmer that they propose to recommend that he be dispossessed of his land, communicate in writing to the fanner particulars of any bad husbandry or other matters alleged in support of the recommendation?

Mr. Hudson: In many instances a proposal to dispossess an occupier is preceded by the giving of explicit directions by the executive committee requiring the occupier to remedy the deficiencies in the cultivation of the land. Whether this be the case or not, the current instructions to executive committees are that before an application is made for my consent to dispossess an occupier, the farm should be inspected by representatives of the committee after due notice to the occupier and, if the committee come to an adverse decision, the occupier is given the opportunity of laying his case personally before the committee if he wishes to do so. I am satisfied that these arrangements are sufficient to ensure that no occupier is dispossessed without being fully informed of the reasons for the committee's action.

Sir J. Mellor: Before taking the serious step of depriving a farmer of his livelihood, should not full particulars of the matters complained of be put into writing and presented to him, before any question of dispossession arises?

Earl Winterton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the action of the war agricultural committees has given general satisfaction?

Mr. Garro Jones: May I ask whether in those cases in which the farmer submits that his neglectful husbandry is due to lack of finance—as it is in numerous cases —he is given some facilities for financing the operations demanded by the committee before being dispossessed?

Mr. Hudson: Perhaps my hon. Friend will wait until I give the answer to the next Question on the Paper.

Sir J. Mellor: May I have an answer to my Supplementary Question?

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has authorized war agricultural executive committees in considering whether a farmer should be dispossessed of his land, to take into account the amount of capital at the farmer's disposal; and whether he will take steps to ensure that such cases shall be determined by reference to the farmer's experience, skill and energy, and not by reference to his financial position, a loan in suitable cases being made from public funds?

Mr. Hudson: War agricultural executive committees have been instructed to take into account, in considering how best to deal with cases of unsatisfactory farming, the possibility of helping those farmers who have experience, skill and energy but are short of capital, by providing goods and services on credit terms under the Agricultural Requisites Assistance Scheme.

Sir P. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend say whether particulars will be given in writing to the dispossessed farmer of the reasons for which he is dispossessed?

Mr. Hudson: I have already replied to that question.

Mr. De la Bère: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of all that has gone on, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the prevalent anxiety with regard to the absence of any right of appeal to an independent tribunal against recommendations by war agricultural executive committees that farmers should be dispossessed of their land; and whether he will consider establishing such right of appeal, subject only to the deposit by an appellant of a sum proportionate to the acreage involved, which sum to be liable to forfeiture in the event of the appeal tribunal declaring the appeal to be frivolous or intended solely to cause delay?

Mr. Hudson: I cannot usefully add to the replies which were given to similar Questions put to me by the right hon. and gallant Member for Rye (Sir G. Court-hope) on 27th March, and the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild) on 27th February.

Sir J. Mellor: Is not the present so-called appeal merely an application to the committee to reconsider its own decisions?

Mr. Hudson: No, Sir.

SUGAR COMMISSION.

Mr. Salt: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the Sugar Beet Commission are still functioning; and, if so, at what date they last met?

Mr. Hudson: The functions of the Sugar Commission have been virtually suspended since the war in consequence of the assumption of control over sugar by the Minister of Food. As far as I am aware, the last meeting of the Sugar Commission was held on 8th December, 1939.

Mr. Salt: Has any acknowledgment been made to the gentlemen who have given five years' service on this Sugar Commission, mostly without remuneration?

WOMEN'S LAND ARMY (CANTEEN FACILITIES).

Sir Joseph Lamb: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will make arrangements with the Service Departments concerned, whereby it may be possible for members of the Women's Land Army, when travelling, to make use of the canteen facilities provided for members of the other women's services, thus providing a much-needed requirement, and at the same time removing what is in some quarters considered to be an unwarranted distinction between women performing work of national importance?

Mr. Hudson: I am consulting my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War on this matter.

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the increase in child delinquency in different parts of the country; whether he will give the latest statistics available; and what action is being taken to bring about a reduction in these figures?

Mr. H. Morrison: In June last the Home Office and the Board of Education in consultation prepared a memorandum on this subject, of which I am sending my hon. Friend a copy. As indicated in that memorandum, action is called for

in various directions along a number of lines and especially in the direction of promoting healthy interests and activities and diverting youthful energies into right channels Copies of the memorandum were sent to local education authorities, justices and voluntary organisations with a request that they should as quickly as possible develop remedial measures in each locality. War conditions increase our difficulties in this important matter, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the Home Office and the Board of Education will continue to give the problem close attention.

POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION, SCOTLAND (COUNCIL).

Mr. Erskine Hill: (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is now in a position to make any public statement as to the arrangements for fulfilling the Government's pledge regarding the appointment of an Advisory Council on post-war planning in Scotland?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): Yes, Sir. I am glad to announce that a Council has been formed to collaborate with me for the purpose of surveying problems of postwar reconstruction in Scotland. The Council will select the subjects of inquiry and will determine by whom the inquiries will be made. The members will be all the living ex-Secretaries of State for Scotland, my right hon. Friends the Members for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), Kelvingrove (Colonel Elliot), North Midlothian (Colonel Colville), and Leith (Mr. E. Brown), and Lord Alness who held the office of Secretary for Scotland. The work of the Council over which I shall preside will be carried on in close touch with the organisations set up by the Government for the purpose of examining all post-war problems of Great Britain as a whole. I am confident that the appointment of this Council, constituted as it is on a basis of national unity, will commend itself to public opinion in Scotland as a guarantee of the Government's intention to see that Scottish problems of reconstruction are competently and authoritatively surveyed and reported upon.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his statement will


be much welcomed in Scotland? May I ask what is to be done now, or within any measurable period, to solve the problem that was raised in the House on the last Sitting Day? Is a practical answer to be given to that Question?

Mr. Johnston: This Council will select the personnel and subjects for inquiries which will be instituted forthwith.

Mr. McGovern: Could not the right hon. Gentleman get any more die-hard Tories to put on this organisation? Does he think these people have the mind for any progress for the ordinary people of Scotland?

Mr. Mathers: Will education as well as matters of physical reconstruction be brought within the purview of the Council—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Gordon Macdonald.

Mr. Maxton: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of State for Scotland has made a most important announcement, and you are allowing only one Supplementary Question on the subject from one quarter of the House and then proceeding to other Business.

Mr. Speaker: The last supplementary question seemed to me to be rather a frivolous one, and, therefore, I stopped further questions.

Mr. Mathers: I hope the question I was proceeding to put does not come within that category.

Mr. Maxton: May I submit, Mr. Speaker, that when a Minister makes an important statement at the end of Questions, it is the usual practice for you to allow one or two questions from different quarters of the House on the statement that has been made? I am asking that that practice should be continued now.

Mr. Speaker: I am very well acquainted with what my duties are on this point. When supplementary questions become what I call frivolous, I generally do not allow any further supplementary questions. On this occasion I am prepared to overlook that mistake, and I will allow the hon. Member to put a question.

Mr. Maxton: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, if there has been the faintest suggestion that I was criticising your conduct of the proceedings. I wish to ask my right hon.

Friend whether other representatives are not available in Scotland, other than these four men, who are very heavily involved on important national tasks at the present time, who could consider the question of post-war reconstruction and direct the activities of those studying the subject?

Mr. Johnston: Those whose names I have mentioned will not themselves participate in any inquiry. They will collaborate with me in selecting the personnel to conduct inquiries.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: How much time does my right hon. Friend imagine these five gentlemen will be able to give to this very important task, and what is to be the relationship between this council and the Minister Without Portfolio and Lord Reith?

Mr. Johnston: To answer that question would be taking us a little too far. As I understand it, Lord Reith's functions deal especially with physical reconstruction of this country as a whole, and the Minister Without Portfolio deals with all aspects of post-war reconstruction including questions relating to foreign affairs, Dominion contracts and so on. I would point out to the House, however, that I am speaking without having the precise terms of their work before me. The particular Council I have mentioned to-day is a Council to select personnel, on an impartial, all-party and authoritative basis, to conduct inquiries in Scotland on matters which primarily relate to Scotland.

Mr. Maxton: Does my right hon. Friend really think that the Secretary of State for Air can be pulled away from his job to give consideration to problems of this kind?

Mr. Mathers: Does not my right hon. Friend's latest pronouncement make my supplementary question one which could be properly answered, namely, whether this council will have under its purview educational matters as well as questions of physical reconstruction?

Mr. Johnston: No, Sir, this council will select personnel for the committees of inquiry on any subject held to be advisable for consideration which deals with postwar Scottish reconstruction.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: In view of the great importance of this matter, and in view of the obvious difficulty my right


hon. Friend has in explaining what is meant, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the question on the Adjournment.

ORANGE SUPPLIES.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald: (by Private Notice)asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he can now state the policy of his Department regarding the distribution of any further consignments of oranges that may be available, and whether any special provision is likely to be made for children?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Major Lloyd George): A scheme for distributing any oranges that may be available has been prepared and the intention is that children under six should receive priority. When supplies are not sufficient to cover the whole country at once, distribution will be limited to one or more areas in rotation, and for the first seven days after delivery in the shops the oranges will be available only for the children, at a rate not exceeding one pound per week. After this initial period of seven days, the remaining oranges may be sold without restriction, but retailers will be encouraged to give preference to children and to schools.

Mr. Macdonald: In view of the fact that there is to be a limitation of seven days in certain areas, will not that mean that adults will be receiving some of the oranges? Would it not be much better to extend these areas so that children and not adults will have the oranges?

Major Lloyd George: The way in which distribution will take place will depend on the amount available. There are nine ports which serve these areas, but obviously the question must depend on the quantities available.

Mr. Thorne: Will the Parliamentary Secretary use his powers to prevent any district obtaining 250,000 oranges, which happened in the case of Southend a short time ago?

Major Lloyd George: I should not like to use my powers to prevent anyone obtaining oranges providing they are available. Our purpose is to make this scheme as equitable as possible so that children shall have a priority share.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Would it not be better to send the oranges direct to maternity and child-welfare clinics, and to infant schools and hospitals, because by adopting a scheme of that kind there could not possibly be a surplus for private distribution?

Major Lloyd George: There is a difficulty there in regard to distribution. Not everybody would be prepared to distribute the oranges, and it would mean a lot of work for people which, I think, would be quite unnecessary. Not everyone attends clinics, and, therefore, I think on the whole our system is the better.

Mr. Mathers: Is it intended that during the first week the oranges will be sold only on production of a child's ration book?

Major Lloyd George: They will be sold on the production of a child's ration book, and the sale must be entered in the book.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Will there be any restriction on price?

Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir.

Sir P. Hurd: May I have an assurance that no oranges will be distributed unless they have juice in them?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Lees-Smith: May we be informed what will be the forthcoming Business of the House?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Attlee): The Business will be as follows:
First Sitting Day—Committee stage of a Supplementary Vote of Credit for War Expenditure.
Second Sitting Day—Report stage of the Supplementary Vote of Credit; Motions to approve certain Orders relating to the Purchase Tax, and further progress will be made with outstanding legislation.
Third Sitting Day—We shall ask the House to pass a special Consolidated Fund Bill for the Vote of Credit through all its stages.

Mr. Lees-Smith: Will the Lord Privy Seal take into account the fact that a number of hon. Members would like to have an opportunity to discuss food rationing, with special reference to the position of workers in the heavy indus-


tries? Would not one of these three days provide a convenient opportunity for a discussion of that kind?

Mr. Attlee: The Business, as at present arranged, allows an opportunity for debate, and the Government will be prepared to make whatever arrangements are agreeable to the House.

Earl Winterton: As a matter of convenience for right hon. and hon. Members, would it not be possible to have made public, through the medium of the Press, some days in advance of the Sitting of the House, the subjects which are to be discussed?

Mr. Attlee: Yes, Sir, so far as is possible, but my Noble Friend will realise in these days events move fast and suddenly.

VOTE OF CREDIT (SUPPLEMENTARY), 1941, (EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR).

Estimate presented of a further sum required to be voted towards defraying the expenses which may be incurred during the year ending 31st March, 1942, for general Navy, Army and Air Services, and for the Ministry of Supply, in so far as specific provision is not made therefor by Parliament for securing the public safety, the defence of the realm, the maintenance of public order and the efficient prosecution of the war, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community and generally for all expenses, beyond those provided for in the ordinary grants of Parliament arising out of the existence of a state of war [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 113.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Considered in Committee; reported without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.

INDIA AND BURMA (POSTPONEMENT OF ELECTIONS) BILL [Lords].

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Mr. Garro Jones: Would the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India tell the House a little about this Bill? I think that some of my hon. Friends on this side will desire to say a few words upon it.

The Secretary of State for India and Burma (Mr. Amery): The object of this Bill, for the Second Reading of which I am asking the approval of the House, is to extend for the duration of the war and for 12 months afterwards the maximum life of the House of Representatives in Burma and of the Legislative Assemblies in the eleven Provinces of India. The extension is permissive. There is nothing to prevent elections being held in any or all of these cases, if the situation at any

time makes that desirable. Under existing constitutional provisions contained in Section 18 (4) of the Government of Burma Act and in Section 61 (2) of the Government of India Act, these legislative bodies have a maximum life of five years. That period expires, in the case of the Burma House of Representatives, in February, 1942, and in the case of five Indian Provinces, namely, Assam, Bengal, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and the Punjab, in April, 1942, and in the six other Provinces, in July, 1942. The effect of the Bill is to extend the maximum permissible life of these legislative bodies from five years to a period expiring 12 months after the end of the war.
The Bill leaves intact the existing discretionary powers of the Governors to dissolve the legislatures under Section 62 (2) of the Government of India Act and under Section 18 (2) of the Government of Burma Act. The House will not take it that the passage of the Bill necessarily means that elections will not be held at some earlier date. It was, however, thought desirable to provide for the longest period that might possibly be required. It may be asked why a period of 12 months after the conclusion of the war is provided for in the Bill. It was unanimously agreed by those who were taken into consultation that, in view of the fact that elections could only conveniently be held in the cold weather season, and as we cannot, of course, know at what period of the year the war may come to an end, it would be desirable to provide for the possibility of a 12 months' extension.
As far as India is concerned, the matter has been very fully discussed between the Governor-General and the Governors concerned and the conclusion to which they have come is that it would not be desirable to hold elections at present. We here have come to the conclusion that the distractions and excitement of an election campaign would hardly be conducive to the success of the war effort and the same, I think, applies in India, where an election also would throw a very heavy strain on the hard-pressed' administrative and public services. Moreover, communal feeling is, unfortunately, running pretty high in some parts of India at present and might well be seriously aggravated by election meetings and speeches. In certain Provinces there is the further feature that


the Constitution is in suspense, owing to the withdrawal of the Congress Ministries and Members. I think it would be little less than farcical, at any rate so long as that position continues, if elections were held merely in order to afford an opportunity for ventilating Mr. Gandhi's policy of negation without any prospect of a return to constitutional government after the election.
The House will note that the Bill does not apply to the Indian Central Legislature. That is because the life of the Central Legislature can be extended by the Governor-General under Section 63 (D) of the Ninth Schedule to the Government of India Act, without further Parliamentary authority and, in fact, the Governor-General recently did extend the life of both Chambers of the Central Legislature until October next year. There are, of course, as the House is aware, Upper Houses in some Provinces, but they are continuing bodies, elected every three years and the next elections in their case are not until 1943. In any case, they affect so limited a constituency as not to make necessary any special provision for the possibility that the war might extend beyond that date.
In the case of Burma, the maximum life of the Senate is seven years. Therefore we consider that that also need not come into the picture. I may add that, in the case of Burma, elections would in the ordinary course have been held this Autumn but the uncertainty of the situation in the Far East has made postponement desirable and, I think, even necessary. The House will also realise that if the present legislature were dissolved and if circumstances arose which made the orderly holding of an election impossible, Burma might find itself altogether without a legislature. Accordingly, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, in consultation with the Premier of Burma, has decided that elections should be postponed for the present. It may interest the House to know that the Premier of Burma is shortly coming to this country on a mission of good-will. We hope to receive him some time about the middle of next month. He will be assured of a cordial welcome and will have opportunities of making many personal contacts. He will be able to tell us something of Burma's own war effort, as well as of her other problems and to learn something at first-hand of our war

effort and of the wider situation in the war. I commend the Bill to the House and I hope it may be possible, in view of the desirability of clearing up the situation in India, to take all its further stages also at this Sitting.

Mr. Ammon: I am sure the House will join with the right hon. Gentleman in expressing satisfaction at the coming visit to this country of the Premier of Burma. I do not propose to take up much time in discussing the Measure which he has submitted or in putting forward objections to it. One has to face the situation as one finds it but it may be permissible, on this occasion, to express regret that the relations at present between India and the Home Government are not more cordial and to regret that it is not possible to make more use of the great arsenal of productive power which exists there and to secure a more hearty co-operation from India in the war effort. But apart from those considerations, and having regard to the exigencies of the war, it would appear that the suspension of elections in the Provinces is, undoubtedly, a step which will have to be taken. It is not wholly due to that but rather to the disturbance that the right hon. Gentleman has referred to and the distraction which obtains in some of these Provinces. That is a pity, all the more so because it might have been prevented had we acted a little more wisely when we first entered the war and approached them in a proper way. I cannot see that any good purpose will be served by labouring the point and discussing the Bill, which, after all, can hardly be contentious, and which we must agree is simply putting them broadly on the same line that we have assumed ourselves in present circumstances.

Earl Winterton: I do not wish to make a speech, but I want to enter one very strong caveat against what the hon. Gentleman has just said. There is no evidence whatever that the unfortunate political situation in India has had the slightest effect either upon recruiting for the Indian Army or upon the very remarkable improvement in the munitions situation. I am sorry to have to tell the hon. Gentleman that I do not think he is accurate in that. Otherwise I entirely agree with all that he has said. It would be unfortunate if that went out to India, without being controverted,


from an hon. Gentleman occupying a responsible position and very well known in India. I should like to pay tribute to what is being done by the magnificent courage of the people in joining the Indian Army and the very considerable and growing munitions production.

Mr. Silverman: I am not in any sense of the word an expert upon Indian affairs, and I make a contribution to this Debate with a good deal of trepidation on that account, and with a little more trepidation in that I find myself in such fundamental disagreement with what has so far been said. My only apology for troubling the House with an opinion which is so inexpert, and so different from those which have been expressed by those who no doubt understand the situation so much better than I -do, is that, after all, we are living in very critical, one might say revolutionary times, and it seems to me that when the experts have failed so miserably and lamentably as they seem to have done in the situation which they have produced it is perhaps excusable if some of us who have opinions for which we claim no ex-pertness or instruction may occasionally venture to offer them.
The Noble Lord said there was no evidence at all that the lamentable state of affairs between this country and India had had an adverse effect either upon recruiting or upon the industrial war effort in India. I do not know what evidence he seeks. Surely he would be among the last to contend that the military or industrial war effort was independent of morale, or that morale was totally and completely independent from the feeling in the mind of the people as to whether the war was being fought for objects which had any meaning or reality for them. I do not profess to advance an opinion on the subject, but everyone seems to agree that there is a most unfortunate situation prevailing in India. I listen to all the experts with the respect that they deserve, but I know none of them who would say that the position was in the least satisfactory or that the Indian people themselves were satisfied either with the present position of affairs or with the pronouncements which have been made from time to time as to the future. Indeed, if I understood it aright, the right hon. Gentleman's speech and his Measure are a confession of that. He said we could

not have elections now; feeling is running too high. What a reason for not holding an election under a democratic Constitution that feeling is running too high.

Mr. Amery: Communal feeling.

Mr. Silverman: Does it matter? Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that communal feeling is different from Indian feeling?

Mr. Amery: Communal feeling between one community and another—not feeling against this country.

Mr. Silverman: I do not know what would have happened in Liverpool, where I was born, where I saw feeling much bitterer than it is in India, if the Executive in those days had stepped in and said, "You feel these things altogether too deeply. You shall not be allowed to express them at the ballot box or in speeches during an election." I think it is a very strange reason for not holding an election that feeling is running too high. And what feeling? If feeling were running very high in favour of the policy of the Government of India, would the right hon. Gentleman have thought that a reason for not holding an election? No. He would have had an election at the earliest possible moment. He would not have waited until the end of the statutory period, but he or the local Governor would have exercised his powers under the Statute to dissolve the Legislative Assembly and have an election earlier than by Statute he need, in order to demonstrate that the people who were making difficulties, who were causing obstruction, who were preventing the attempt to make the new Constitution work, had not the backing of the Indian people and were really an obstructive, recalcitrant minority, representing no one. When the right hon. Gentleman said we cannot hold elections because feeling is running too high, his sentence was incomplete. He meant, "We cannot hold elections because feeling is running too high against the Government." That is all it can mean. If the position had been that all these bodies did not represent Indian opinion and that the Government really represented, in the difficulties of the moment, what the Indian people, at any rate for the time being, desired to be done, these elections would not have been postponed. The argument will not stand examination.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) said that, after all, the effect of the Bill is merely to apply to India what we have applied to ourselves. There is a superficial sense in which that is true. Just as this Parliament exhausted its mandate a year ago and by its own act extended the period of its representation, so this Bill would have a corresponding effect in India, but when you have stated that similarity, you have stated the whole similarity. Look at the difference. It was this House that decided to prolong its own life. Some day all Members will have to go back to their constituencies and justify, if we can, to those who sent us here not merely all the things we have done or attempted to do or left undone during the period in which we represented or misrepresented them in this House, but this very act of prolonging the representation which was entrusted to us in 1935. That is not the case here. If the Legislative Assemblies in India had been asked to prolong their own mandate, there would have been a parallel to what took place in this House. This Bill is not the act of a democratically elected Legisative Assembly prolonging its own existence and knowing it will have to answer for that fact to the peoples who elected it. It is an act of direct and personal rule, an act of autocracy, an act of dictatorship. It is an act to prevent the Indian people from expressing their views at the time when the Statute gave them the right to express them, and not the act of the Legislative Assemblies in India.
This Bill does not postpone elections until communal feeling has died down; it postpones them until 12 months after the conclusion of the war. That is surely in direct conflict with the reason adduced in support of it by the right hon. Gentleman, because the communal feeling, if it exists, was not because of the war and will not be: ended by the war. The present state of political affairs in India, which everybody agrees to be unsatisfactory, will presumably some day have to be brought to an end. I could understand, although I do not think I would accept, an argument that until the political impasse both between India and this country and between various bodies in India had been resolved the elections ought not to take place. That argument, however, cannot fairly be advanced in support of a Bill

that has nothing to do with any attempt to bring the political impasse to an end. The right hon. Gentleman gave us no prospect that the Government were to do or to say anything to bring the impasse to an end. The war might end tomorrow or in 10 years' time, and the situation in India would remain as it is unless something were done by the Government to give the Indian people the right to govern themselves. The Prime Minister, in conjunction with the President of the United States, has committed this country to certain propositions, one of which is a pledge to give to every country the right to choose the Government it desires. If that was said to India, it would go a long way, if accompanied by positive acts showing the sincerity of the assertion, towards removing the difficulties which might in some people's minds prevent elections from taking place.
The Prime Minister was asked yesterday how far that declaration was intended to govern the Indian situation. He made a reply which must have brought deeper despair and gloom into the heart of every Indian striving patriotically for his country and for better understanding "between his country and ourselves. Contrast that with what the Prime Minister had to say about Syria. Syria is not ours, and I suppose that it was easier for the Prime Minister to apply his declaration to territories for which we have no responsibility. He said that the special rights of the French in Syria were to be recognised and protected, but there was to be Syrian independence. What is more, he said that that was not to be deferred until after the war but was to begin now. Such a statement, omitting the word "Syria" and substituting the word "India," might render this Bill unnecessary.
I apprehend that I am in a small minority, but I hope that there are those who share my view and that those with greater knowledge of Indian questions than I can claim will not think that the statements I have been making are entirely irrelevant or unhelpful. I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to be content with this autocratic act at this moment. Can he say nothing to India except, "Because there is a high tide of feeling against this Government, you shall not be allowed to express it at elections"? Is he satisfied, as the Noble Lord was, that we are getting from India


all the contribution that we might get if happier political relations existed? I am not satisfied of that, and I feel sure that he is not satisfied. I do not like to put it on this ground. If it is right for India to have liberty, it is right for her to have it whatever the effect may be on the war situation. It ought not to be qualified in that way, but if the truth be, as I believe it to be, that the right and just solution of this question would not only be an act of justice done now shining bright in a dark world, but would also arouse such a high degree of enthusiasm among Indians as to bring them wholeheartedly into the fight which we are waging as much for them as for us, would it not be worth while to adopt it?
Is it an act of statesmanship to stand back and say, "Until you agree with us, you shall not be heard at all"? Hitler can do that in Germany, in Austria, in France and in Italy. He can do it all over the world. Is it enough for us to do that? The right hon. Gentleman has a great opportunity to show that he is more than an able and efficient administrator, to show that he is also a high Imperial statesman seeing things in pristine importance divorced from the local and particular and temporary. He has an opportunity to make a declaration and to do something which would end a conflict which all good Indians and all good British citizens deplore. What does he do in that situation? He commits another act of direct and personal rule, which is a denial of democracy and another glorification of autocracy, and I cannot agree with those who think that this House ought to accept his action without protest, complaint or comment, as though it were the most natural and ordinary thing in the world, a mere commonplace in the end for democracy.

Sir Stanley Reed: I think anybody who understands anything about the position in India, or has any knowledge of India, will agree that the statement made by the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing (Earl Winterton) was a strict and literal truth. All those who have studied this question will agree that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has no option but to bring in this Measure. For the reasons he has given, and many others, it must be patent to anybody who has any know-

ledge at all of the situation that this Measure was necessary in almost any circumstances in India and doubly necessary because of the circumstances of the day. When listening to the remarks of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman), I could not help asking myself whether, in the last 18 months, he has ever listened to a single one of the statements made by the Secretary of State for India, whether he has ever read any news of any sort from any part of India, and whether he has ever perused any of the White Papers and other official documents relating to India, because, if he has, I cannot conceive that any man of average intelligence would have drawn the conclusions from those statements and facts which he has drawn and has put before us today.

Mr. Silverman: rose…

Sir S. Reed: I am not going to give way. Further, I would say definitely that if he had been at pains to understand even the elementary principles of the constitutional relations between the Government of India as by law established and this House, he would have realised how totally irrelevant are much of the argument and many of the statements he has made today. That does not alter the broad, essential fact of the situation mentioned by the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon), that not one of us is happy and satisfied with the present situation in India. But that has nothing to do with this Bill. There is not one of us who would leave any stone unturned to produce happier relations and a more genuine constitutional form of government throughout the Provinces in India. When I say none of us, I include my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy as much as myself and the hon. Member for North Camberwell. We must all feel even more acute regret that owing to the further development of what I must call totalitarian ideas in the political life of India the prospect of a further development and association of Indian thought and feeling with public life and the Government machine is not moving so far and so actively as we had desired and hoped. But I put it to the House that that has nothing to do with the Bill before us. The Bill would be necessary in any circumstances whatsoever during the war, and


should be accepted as such, with the proviso that while we take that view, we shall still range ourselves whole-heartedly behind the Secretary of State and the Viceroy in using any power and influence we may possess to press forward the establishment of better relations in India and the more rapid movement of India towards that full self-government, that full Dominion status, which is our hope and our ambition.

Mr. Sorensen: The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Reed) said that this Bill has nothing to do with the situation in India and submitted that it was necessary under the circumstances, that is to say, that an election could not take place in India at this time. I feel bound to ask whether the same observation would apply, for example, to the Dominion of Australia. In Australia there has been in contemplation recently an election. If what has been said holds good regarding India, surely it must also hold good regarding Australia. It does not hold good about Australia, for the simple reason that we recognise that the Australians have a right to govern themselves as a Dominion and within the Statute of Westminster. The reason it does hold good in regard to India is that we do not yet recognise the right of Indians to govern themselves even on the same basis as the people of Australia. Therefore, I think the hon. Member's observations on that point were utterly irrelevant. I would put in this further plea, a plea eloquently expressed and elaborated by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman), a plea for a recognition that this Bill will undoubtedly have an additional depressing effect on the people of India.
What have we to fear? If an election were to take place at the present time, the majority in India would either endorse the attitude of this Government or would repudiate it. If they endorsed the attitude of this Government, obviously we should rejoice, and I venture to submit that if we had anticipated that the overwhelming majority of the electors in India would endorse the policy of this Government in regard to India, it is quite likely that this Bill would not have seen the light of day. We should have gladly seized the opportunity to register to the whole world the fact that India entirely endorsed our own British-Indian policy.

It is because we feel, and with very sound reasons, that if an election were held now the majority of the people of India would vote against the policy of this Government, that this Bill has been hurried forward. It is lamentable that we have not taken the people of India into our confidence in this respect. In my estimation it would have done more for the prestige of this country, of democracy, and of the principles we hold dear, to hold an election even though it should go against the Government than to postpone it, and then to support that action with the sorry, the shallow and the untrue arguments which have been advanced today. I am certain that the reason why this Bill has been brought forward is not to be found in inter-communal differences. They existed in bygone days, and, unhappily, they are likely to exist in the days to come. We all desire most earnestly that in the course of time the gulf between the various communities shall be bridged, but this Bill will not help to bridge that gulf, in fact, will hinder the bridging of it. It will play into the hands of one group and will not in any sense of the word grapple with the real problem.
There is only one other thing I would add. It seems to me that there is evidence here of emphasis being given to the most unfortunate statement of the Prime Minister this week. The Prime Minister has made it clear that although the splendid principles embodied in the Eight-Point Charter signed by him and by President Roosevelt are for general application, they are not for specific application within the sphere where we are able to apply them. We are not going to apply them in a case where we could demonstrate to the world our consistency and sincerity. The Prime Minister has done a disservice to that Charter, which is excellent in many respects. I regret very much that there should be this additional emphasis of the Prime Minister's betrayal of his own principles. I believe that not only the few hon. Members who have spoken but others also in the House feel, not merely that it is unfortunate, to use a very mild word, that democratic elections should be suspended, but that for the sake of the great principles for which the whole world is in travail we should state boldly and courageously, "Let the elections be held." In that way we should show the


world that whether elections go for or against us we believe so much in the principles of democracy that we are prepared to take the consequences. Because the Government have not seen their way to do that, I believe they have done a great disservice, not only to the people of India, but to democracy throughout the world.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I rise to associate myself with what has been stated by my colleagues on these benches and to express my profound disappointment at this tinkering and most reaction are Bill. The statement made by the right hon. Gentleman can never convince anybody who has paid the least attention to Indian affairs that the reasons given by him are really justifiable. There is one thing which the right hon. Gentleman —and the Government for that matter— has overlooked. He seems to be completely unaware that in the last few years, and particularly during the last few months, a great deal of added interest in Indian affairs has been shown by the people of this country. That is not merely my own personal experience. When I and other hon. Members go on to public platforms to try and make the best contribution we can towards intensifying our war effort, the question of India, the rights of India, the claims of India and the injustices under which India suffers and has suffered for many years crop up far more frequently than in the past.
People are compelled to raise this question. They cannot help it. People who are intensely interested in the war effort and are extremely anxious to give of their best in the war effort are being forced to question—I say this most reluctantly— the protestations of some of the principal spokesmen of this Government with regard to the principles and ideals for which we are fighting because they are aware of the shocking conditions that exist among the many millions of people in India today. The right hon. Gentleman has overlooked that, and I do not think the Government have become aware of it. I must say, and I am quite certain I am correct, that he will not be able to avoid very serious consequences in this country in the form of questioning the sincerity of the Government if these shocking conditions are to be perpetuated until Heaven knows what date in the remote future.
To attempt to justify the postponement of the elections because there is alleged to be much communal feeling is really absurd. The right hon. Gentleman answered a question as to the number of political prisoners now in Indian prisons. Those political prisoners are the leaders of the Indian masses. The appalling figure given to us was over 12,000. Can it be said that imprisonment of these leading personalities among Indians has anything whatsoever to do with communal feeling? The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that the answer is "No." How can we reconcile a statement of that kind —without, by the way, any attempt to justify that mass imprisonment of Indian thinkers and Indian leaders and patriots as great as any of us…

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is really extending the Debate far beyond the scope of this Bill. The only thing the Bill deals with is the postponement of Provincial elections.

Mr. Davies: But surely any hon. Member is entitled to give reasons why he objects to the postponement of the elections. I am trying to give reasons.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is entitled to give reasons, but they must be relevant to the Bill.

Mr. Davies: I am trying to give reasons as to why the elections should not be postponed, and by implication I should like to make clear that if the elections were not postponed, the consequences would be of far-reaching effect to India and this country. It is not my desire to enlarge the scope of the Debate, but I think any hon. Member is entitled to draw the attention of the Government to the fact that we are engaged in a war today and that hon. Members here are alarmed at the fact that we are alienating the potential help of 400,000,000 people today. The noble Lord got up to correct my hon. Friend who opened the Debate from this side, protesting that recruiting in India had been a great success. If it were not tragic, it would be laughable that out of the millions of people in India the number recruited to the Armed Forces is simply absurd. I am against this Bill because I regard it as one of the most dangerous pieces of tinkering that the Government can indulge in today.
I am satisfied, and a number of my colleagues are satisfied, and an increasing


number of people in this country are satisfied, that the Indian people are ripe for self-government. I must add my protest to what has already been said against this Bill. Nothing that any Member of the Government can say will prevent our people trying to reconcile this Bill with what has already been referred to, the great Declaration made by our Prime Minister and President Roosevelt within the last few weeks. I do not know how that Declaration can be reconciled with the Bill. I do not think it can ever be done. The Government are inviting a situation that is alarming, because the question of the rights of India will very soon provide, I am afraid, the acid test of the sincerity of the Government and of the substance in the statement made by the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt.
Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman, in the great position that he occupies for good and for advancement to a position which can make a great contribution towards real civilisation, justify what we all profoundly hope we are fighting for? Instead of alienating this vast population and sentencing them again for an indefinite period to the terrible material conditions that obtain in India, why can he not get them on our side as Allies and friends? I am certain, and I think most hon. Members are certain, that the hatred of Fascism is as deeply rooted in India as it is in this country; why not harness that great force in the cause of freedom? I refuse to believe that that cannot be done. I believe that the ideals of our Indian friends are fundamentally identical with our own, but it is shocking that we should be alienating this great people in a crisis when we require their help and their physical, moral and spiritual assistance.
I object to the Bill because I regard the war as one of liberation. I am accepting every word of our Prime Minister and President Roosevelt, in their Declaration to the world the other day. Because of that Declaration we are under the most solemn obligation to apply the Charter to the Indian people. When I remember the great effort that our country is making today in this war of liberation, I believe that what the Prime Minister meant was liberation from exploitation, from economic insecurity and privation, from disease and hunger and from ignorance and superstition. We want to believe that we are fighting for that kind of

liberation. Why perpetuate the appalling conditions in India? I have with me statistics of the material conditions existing among the Indian people. I need not put them into words. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well what kind of language would give a correct description of them. The people of this country are against the Government in this matter. I am satisfied that the conditions of the Indian people are increasingly known to our own people. We are fighting to free the world from all kinds of Nazi, and pseudo-Nazi oppression, and the Government are under an obligation to make their contribution, where they can, towards India and thus give to the world abundant and unchallengeable evidence that they mean what they say.
Unless the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to give us something more constructive than has yet been adopted, he and the Government will hear a great deal more about the feelings of our country upon the treatment meted out to the Indian people. If the Government are prepared to risk a raising up of the appalling conditions that obtain there, I shall hold them responsible, and I shall say that they are guilty of the grossest criminal disservice to the people of this country in the cause in which we want to fight.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: I cannot but regret the words with which the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. O. Davies) has just finished his speech. I am convinced that the Government want to achieve the earliest realisation of the objective that they have proclaimed of full and equal partnership on the part of India in the Commonwealth of the Empire. I deeply regret also, as I think every hon. Member must regret, the situation which now exists and as a result of which, in part, the Bill is now before us. I wish it were possible even now to make another appeal to that good will that exists in India and to the earnest desire to make a great and united Indian contribution to human welfare which should bring together, even now, some of those Indian leaders, who, up to now, have been unable to co-operate.
There is no easy solution in front of us. Those who know anything of the details of the Indian situation must know that the Secretary of State is bearing an immense burden at this time. It is difficult


for him to take the steps which will open the door he wants to see open, for the matter does not rest wholly with him; yet he has a unique measure of responsibility. Even now, if the doors of the prisons in India can be opened and an atmosphere of trust be created, it should be possible to get the leaders of all parties in India to come together for the service of India at this critical time. They might not be able to look far ahead. They know that now, when the whole civilisation of India and the future of India are imperilled, if they could come together to serve India and the welfare of humanity, working together, they would be able to prepare the way for a wider and fuller cooperation in the future and for the planning of the details of constitutional development that are yet so hard to foresee. There must be trust between Indians and Indians and between British statesmen and the Indian people.
On our side, we in the House of Commons, can help a little at least to create that atmosphere. Unfortunately the Secretary of State has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. Only yesterday some of us may have seen a letter from an Indian left wing leader, Mr. Roy, addressed to the Viceroy, in which he, while urging his fellow countrymen to cooperate and to get above the differences which have separated them in order to work together for the service of India, spoke of the complacency of the Secretary of State. I am sure he could not have done that if he had met the Secretary of State, if he had heard him himself and, above all, if he had had an opportunity of intimate contact with him. How is it possible across an interval of thousands of miles…

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I would remind the hon. Member that this is not an occasion on which we can debate the whole situation in India.

Mr. Harvey: I do not want to dispute your ruling, but I feel that this Bill would be unnecessary if the differences which exist at the present time in India could be solved. I will not attempt to pursue further the point to which I was referring, except to say that if this Bill is to go forward, it cannot achieve the success we want unless along with it a further effort is made by the Government—and I am sure it will be—to get over the difficulties that

we now deplore. The Secretary of State can show that he is not complacent. I am sure he will do it, and will in some way be able to make the great appeal that is needed to Indian patriots to cooperate together, and to cooperate and work in the fellowship of the Imperial Commonwealth, for the good of India and of the whole future of civilisation.

Mr. Cove: I do not rise at this moment to make any prolonged argument against this Bill. As a matter of fact there have been many important statements made by my hon. Friends who have preceded me, and I should imagine that the speech—the very able speech, although he did not claim to be an expert —of my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Silverman) deserves an answer from the Government Front Bench. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne will forgive me if I correct his statement that he represents a minority view at least as far as his own party is concerned; I would like to emphasise that today the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne spoke for a growing group of Labour Members in this House who are giving intensive study and increasing attention to the condition of India and to the policies that are being pursued by the National Government in relation to India. As a matter of fact, had the time been more opportune, these benches would have been full of Members of the Labour party who are determined that the aims and objects for which we are fighting in this war shall be applied to India. I would like, in the few words I address to the House, to say that I was rather disappointed with my hon. Friend the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon), who spoke from the Front Bench today. I think he was disappointed with himself. So far as I have followed his speeches in the past, the hon. Gentleman has gone much further than he seemed to go today. He was soft-pedalling today. I do not know what pressure may have been brought to bear upon him.

Mr. Ammon: No pressure has been brought to bear upon me, except that I think it is not necessary to repeat what I said some months ago, when I was the only Member in this House who criticised the setting up of the particular Committee to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I was concerned only with the narrow limits of the Bill.

Mr. Cove: I am very glad to have that assurance, because I was very much concerned, and a number of us were sympathising with him to-day. At any rate, let him resume on all occasions his active advocacy of Indian independence. He has behind him, I can assure him, an organised group of Members on his side of the House who are intensely and keenly interested in India, and who will support him on every occasion on which he puts forward the Labour party policy. Not only that, but I would remind him that he has behind him the annual Conference of the Labour party, so that he need have no fear at all in going forward with a thoroughly radical and progressive policy as far as India is concerned. I have always meant to say that, because I want to emphasise, and there is no make-belief about it at all, that there has come into being a new interest in India. It is a widespread interest. Friends tell me that all up and down the country there is this revived interest in the well-being and independence of India. The Government cannot shirk the issue by throwing all the responsibility upon any divisions that may exist in India. We govern and rule India, and it is the duty and responsibility of the Government to take the initiative as far as those things are concerned. It is a bankruptcy of statesmanship simply to say that these intense communal differences exist. We have been in India for 200 years or so, and if that is the result, if we cannot find a solution now along the lines and principles which we are advocating in this war, I say that it is a complete failure of British rule throughout the centuries in India.
It is perfectly true, as my right hon. Friend says, that the Bill seems to have narrow limits. That is one of the reasons why this discussion is not very much more widespread. There is a feeling that the Bill has narrow limits, but had it been appreciated that fundamental principles are involved in this Bill, I venture to assert that the Debate would have been much more intense than it has been. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne said, the policy represented by this Bill is a denial of democracy and democratic practice in India. I ask my right hon. Friend opposite, and I ask the National Government in which there are Labour representatives and in which our leaders take an active part and have their responsibilities, to reverse the engines

as far as India is concerned and to make a complete and radical change, to cease to pursue a policy of repression, and to follow the path of democracy—in brief, to apply the Atlantic Charter fully and freely to Indian conditions. It is surely hypocritical to say that we are fighting for the freedom of nations in Europe while denying that essential freedom in India. It gives the lie to the whole of our war effort, and is regarded as so doing. I hope that the Government will review the whole situation in the light of what we are fighting for. There is at this moment an increasing number of active people in this country, and an increasing number of Members of this House, who will insist that the principles and aims for which we are fighting shall be applied in the near future to conditions in India.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House.—[Mr. A. Young.]

Resolved, "That this House will immediately resolve itself into the said Committee.—[Mr. A. Young.]

Bill accordingly considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1 (Postponement of certain general elections.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Silverman: I am a little disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the discussion which has taken place, in which he had only one supporter, and that one half-hearted, should not have felt it necessary to reply to the arguments put before him.

Mr. Amery: There is the Third Reading.

Mr. Silverman: I will withdraw my complaint and await the Third Reading. With regard to this Clause, what is the position with regard to by-elections that might be necessary from time to time? I understand that a great many members of these Legislative Assemblies are now, under Defence Regulations in India, sometimes under actual charges, in prison, and that when a member of these Legislative Assemblies is in prison in India under a Defence Regulation, or under


some political charge, the Government then proceed to do what the Government hesitate to do in the case of the hon and gallant Member for Peebles and Southern (Captain Ramsay). They declare the seat vacant. How many people are now in that position in these Assemblies, and what is to be the position in regard to the vacancies? Are there to be by-elections, or has the Governor the right to allow a by-election in some cases and refuse it in others? In one case there was a place where Nehru was tried. After that trial there was a by-election in the constituency. There were three candidates. One was a Congress candidate, another was, I suppose, some kind of Government candidate—he was in opposition to Congress—and a third candidate got seven votes. We may disregard him. The Congress candidate got, I understand, 15 votes for every vote his opponent got. His opponent therefore lost his deposit, and the Congress man was elected. I do not know whether the Government in India have authorised any by-elections since then. I wonder what the position will be under this Clause about these by-elections. Is there to be any opportunity, such as we retain in this country, after the prolongation of our term, in by-elections from time to time to test public opinion?

Mr. Amery: The only effect of the present Bill is to postpone the date of the compulsory dissolution. It does not affect in any way the ordinary procedure in regard to by-elections, which remains in India as it is here.

Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Mr. Amery: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
I think it would be the wish of the House for me very briefly to turn to some of the arguments adduced on Second Reading. May I say, with all deference to Members opposite, that they seem to have entirely mistaken the reasons which I gave for this particular Measure? The main reason was the reason for which we have passed a similar Measure here, namely, that an election in the middle of

a struggle for life would involve interference with the war effort. That was the main reason I gave. It applies to India as it does here. I added that an additional reason in time of war for not holding these elections was the undoubted existence in many parts of India of very keen communal tension, which in recent months has led to a good deal of loss of life and property, and would undoubtedly be exacerbated by the holding of an election. I gave a third reason peculiar to the Indian situation. In certain Provinces Ministries have refused to serve, and presumably would continue to refuse to serve if an election were held, so that an election would, under those conditions, until this situation changes and until that policy is modified, be a purely futile procedure. What some hon. Members have ignored is that there are four great Provinces in India, with a population of something like 100,000,000 persons, in which normal democratic government is in effect to-day, with regard to which the position, so far as postponement of elections is concerned, is similar to that in this House. There is no reason to believe that if elections were held there, there would be returned anyone not fully supporting the war effort. I think that is all I need say on the immediate and narrow purposes of this Bill.
It would not be in Order for me on Third Reading to go into wider issues beyond just saying this in answer to the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove). It is not in one party only in this House of Commons but in the whole of this House and the country that there is a genuine desire to see India find her position as soon as possible as a free and equal partner in the British Commonwealth. That is a matter of principle in which we have taken the lead before the Atlantic Charter, which introduces no new principle, was ever promulgated. It is also a matter which has to be carried out in practice, and I, in my position, would be very grateful if Members who are so eager for immediate action would help me by giving me their precise scheme under which control of Indian affairs could be given to an Indian Government able to continue by agreement among Indians themselves.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

GOODS AND SERVICES (PRICE CONTROL) ACT, 1941.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): I beg to move:
That the draft of an Order entitled the Prices of Goods Act, 1939 (Amendment of First Schedule), Order, 1941, proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 6 of the Goods and Services (Price Control) Act, 1941, a copy of which was presented to this House on 6th August, be approved.
This Order is as simple as it is short. The First Schedule to the Prices of Goods Act, 1939, sets out in broad terms those charges which a trader may properly calculate in connection with the fixing of prices and of margins. Among those various headings comes the item of insurance premiums. It might, therefore, seem that any premiums or contributions paid by the trader in respect of war damage would properly come into the calculation, but in Section 82 of the War Damage Act it is clearly laid down that these are contributions of a capital nature and must not be taken into consideration in a computation of profits for the purpose of the Income Tax Act. That principle is further expanded in Section 84. This Order merely applies to the Prices of Goods Act the principle which the Chancellor of the Exchequer laid clown for the arrangements as to Income Tax and Excess Profits Tax.

Mr. Doland: I wish to speak for a few minutes against this Motion, and, with your permission, Sir, to move the deletion of that paragraph of the Order which refers to
any premium payable under a policy issued under either of the schemes operated under Part II of the said Act…

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Brown): The House cannot amend the Order; it can only accept or reject it.

Mr. Doland: Then might I just say a few words in protest against the Order? As I understand, under paragraph (ii), it is intended, as the Minister has just said, to exclude premiums paid under the War Damage Act from the expenses which may be calculated. I regret that the Minister did not show good reasons why these should be excluded or suggest that the Order was necessary because circumstances which had come to the knowledge of him or of those advising indicated that these premiums would increase prices abnormally. I realise that under Section

82 and Section 84 of the War Damage Act the contributions, or premiums, are not deductible expenses for the purpose of Income Tax adjustment. I and my friends in the distributive industry cannot see why this should prevent owners of businesses from taking such payments into account. I quite agree that the percentage of such expenses would be small. On any one article it would in many instances be infinitesimal. But in the aggregate it would, in some cases, be a serious item. Moreover, in certain circumstances this insurance is compulsory. The principal objection to this Order is that, as I think the Parliamentary Secretary will admit, all ordinary insurance premiums are a permitted expense of a business. This Order introduces a very dangerous precedent. I feel sure that the hon and gallant Gentleman knows that in some classes of business margins of profit are very seriously restricted under the Prices of Goods Act. Any further impost such as this will react seriously on the living of those in the distributive industry.
I appreciate that the President of the Board of Trade and the Parliamentary Secretary do not wish to send the small trader out of business, but I am not so sure of those who are advising them. Small traders have acknowledged with considerable satisfaction the declarations which have been made on many occasions by the President of the Board of Trade, and, I think, on more than one occasion in this House by the Parliamentary Secretary, that it is not intended to disturb the balance as between big and small traders. He has stated that explicitly, but every time such Measures or Orders are brought before the House they do to a great extent affect only the small trader. I sincerely trust that the Orders which may be made under the Goods and Services (Price Control) Act will not have a deleterious effect on thousands of small traders who are now striving to keep their heads above water. I listened to-day to the Lord Privy Seal when he gave us the Business which is to be transacted after the Recess, and when he said that further Orders on the Purchase Tax would be made. These Orders are coming in now, if not daily, almost weekly, and we, as traders, do not know where we are in this state of things. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will watch most carefully the recommendations which are


brought to his notice by the officials or officers of his Department, so that in future such Orders under the Act will not further tend to eliminate the small trader. I am very much concerned, as I feel certain many Members of this House are concerned, about the position to-day of thousands of persons engaged in small retail shops. In answer to a Question by the hon and gallant Member for East Leicester (Major Lyons) yesterday, it was stated that in Leicester 179 shops were being prevented from selling certain articles of food.—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We are not discussing the general position of the small trader; we are discussing this particular Order.

Mr. Doland: With great respect, I am only suggesting that this Order does affect the small trader more than the bigger concerns, and I am protesting against the Order to be made by this Resolution. I hope that future recommendations by officials will be carefully looked into, so that the small trader may be given an opportunity to continue in business.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: I do not want to be out of Order in discussing this particular Amendment to the Schedule of the Prices of Goods Act. All I want to do is to ask the hon and gallant Gentleman why the Order which he brings before the House to-day is so limited in scope. It will be within the recollection of Members present that in the course of the Second Reading and Committee stages of the Goods and Services (Price Control) Act there were many references not only to the Schedule of the Prices of Goods Act in general terms, but to particular items thereon, which called for amendment. The Parliamentary Secretary himself, for instance, pointed out the possibility of abuse with regard to advertising expenses, and that there are exceptions to these powers is an indication that the Board of Trade saw the necessity for amending the Schedule.
It is most important, because it is the Schedule alone which decides what variation in price may be justified from the basic figures. I would like to ask the hon and gallant Gentleman how long is it since the attention of the Board of Trade was directed to the need for amending, clarifying and defining some of these

items in the Schedule? The Board have the powers—they have had them for many weeks—and all they produce is this quite necessary, but exiguous, addition to the Schedule. Let me take one example. Since the time that the question of advertising has been under the eye of the Board of Trade, there has been a considerable increase in what one can only describe as useless advertising. If you look at recent issues of the Press, you will find that at great expense a number of manufacturers and traders are taking up much space with their descriptions of the meaning of the "V" sign, what "X" stands for, pictures of towns of the future and the new world that is to come, quotations from the Prime Minister's speeches and from imaginary speeches by Hitler, and descriptions of various processes in industry —all this at enormous expense, which, of course, is reflected again in the prices of the goods. The only way that can be dealt with is by amending the Schedule more extensively than can be done by means of the Order now before the House. Why is it that at this stage the House is being asked to make only this very small, but necessary, alteration?

Captain Waterhouse: If I may say one or two words on the points that have been raised, I would like to renew the assurance which has been given by the President of the Board of Trade, and which has been repeated many times in this House, that the last tiling in the world that the Board has in mind is to do anything to upset the fair balance between the larger and smaller units in the retail trade. If the hon. Member for Balham and Tooting (Mr. Doland) could do anything to help us to assure the influential body with which he is intimately connected of that fact, I think he would be conferring a benefit not only on the Board of Trade but on the shopkeepers themselves by removing from them a constant source of irritation and fear. He rather complained that I had not given reasons for this particular Order, but it is within the recollection of the House that the War Damage Act was approved and that the arguments set forth by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in that Debate were considered so sufficient that it did not seem up to me to have to repeat them to-day. In that connection I see no reason at all why this particular Order should affect the small trader more than the large trader.
As a general argument it would be obviously absurd to say that a landlord must pay the whole of his Part I contribution himself and might pass none on to the tenant, and to say that the tenant might pass on his share of the charge by increase of prices to the general consumer. On that broad line I think he will see the equity of the proposal we have put for-word. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Moelwyn Hughes) complained or remarked—I am not quite certain which it was—that this was a short and simple Order. Well, I can assure him that there are better things to come. The Lord Privy Seal spoke to-day of further Orders. It is not necessary to make all alterations by modification of the Schedule; there are other ways of achieving the same thing, and I think that when he sees the Orders which will in due course be laid before the House he will be satisfied that the end we all have in view has been reasonably and properly attained.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft of an Order entitled the Prices of Goods Act, 1939 (Amendment of First Schedule), Order, 1941, proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under Section 6 of the Goods and Services (Price Control) Act, 1941, a copy of which was presented to this House on 6th August, be approved.

SOLICITORS BILL [Lords].

Order for Second Reading read.

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I think it would be proper, before I go on to explain the Bill, if I reminded hon. Members how it comes about that I am moving a Bill which comes from another place and which was produced there on behalf of the Law Society, by a noble lord, as a Private Member's Bill. The House may remember that when it passed the original Resolution, under which only Government Bills are introduced and Private Members' time is taken, the Prime Minister was asked whether the bar was absolute, and whether there might not be exceptional cases in which legislation coming from another place in the form of a Private Member's Bill might not be given facilities if it was generally regarded as an acceptable and desirable Measure. The Prime Minister, on behalf of the

Government, then stated that the bar was not absolute, and that there might be circumstances which would lead the Government to give such a Bill facilities if they were satisfied that it was the general wish of the House that the Bill should reach the Statute Book and if they were satisfied further that it could reach the Statute Book as an agreed or, in effect, uncontroversial Measure. It is in pursuance of that general understanding that this Bill has been given facilities, and that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir A. Somerville), said a short time ago that the Government hoped it would be possible to provide facilities for the consideration of this Measure on the understanding that it would be treated as uncontroversial.
The circumstances which have led the Government to give facilities to the Bill arise in part from its history. Before the war, in the 1938–39 Session, a Bill was introduced, on behalf of the Law Society, in another place dealing with a number of matters, some of which are dealt with in the Clauses of this Bill, and that Bill, after its introduction, went before a Joint Committee of both Houses. The Joint Committee approved in substance the Clauses in the original Bill which were largely of a procedural nature, but, in full agreement with those who were representing the Law Society, suggested that the Law Society should submit to Parliament provisions for dealing with the matter of defalcations by solicitors, a matter which we all deplore —and none more than the solicitors' profession—but cases of which arise from time to time. In their report, the Joint Committee suggested that there should be a provision for an annual examination of accounts, and they suggested also—they thought it was perhaps outside their terms of reference—that the Law Society should consider a provision under which a fund could be set up and subscribed to, and out of which in proper cases certain payments might be made to those who had suffered as a result of defalcations by solicitors. The result was that the Bill as introduced was withdrawn, on the understanding that the Law Society would submit in the next Session of Parliament a Bill adopting the suggestions that had been put forward to deal with this matter, to which great importance is attached in the House as well as outside. Such a Bill


was introduced last Session, but owing to difficulties of Parliamentary time it never came before the House. The present Bill was passed in another place, and I am now moving its Second Reading here. The Bill contains three Clauses to which I shall refer briefly because I think they raise principles of importance in the light of what I have said, and it contains also the original procedural Clauses and certain other procedural Clauses which were not in the original Bill, but which I do not think raise any points of principle.
I think the House would like me to pay a tribute to the Law Society. The Joint Committee having made their recommendations, the Law Society, in spite of the disturbances caused to their work as to that of others by war conditions, interpreted the wishes of the House as meaning that they should go ahead and try to formulate provisions which could be put on the Statute Book during the war, if the House so agreed, to deal with this very important matter. I think they are entitled to our gratitude and the gratitude of the public for having gone ahead with the matter instead of, as possibly they might have done, pleading the inconveniences to their offices and businesses arising out of war conditions as an excuse for postponing the matter. It is true that, in the circumstances, I think it is impossible for one of the provisions to be put into effective operation during the war, but if the Bill is passed that provision will be on the Statute Book and will come into operation when times are more normal.
Hon. Members may have seen a Motion on the Order Paper, with the names of certain hon. Members attached to it, for the rejection of the Bill. Discussions have taken place between those who had their names to this Motion and the Law Society, and the reasons which lead some hon. Members to put their names to the Motion have been the subject of discussion. As a result, the Law Society have agreed to suggest to the House at a later stage certain Amendments to which I will refer in due course. I understand that, if the House agrees to those changes, the hon. Members who had their names to the Motion will be satisfied that the Bill should proceed as an uncontroversial Measure. The hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Douglas) still has his name

on the Order Paper, and no doubt he is-not completely satisfied, but I hope he will not carry his opposition so far as to make the Bill a controversial Measure, which would mean that the Bill would be lost altogether.
Clause I provides that there should be an annual. Certificate by an accountant to be presented by the solicitor at or about the time when he applies for and gets his practising certificate. That was, in effect, the suggestion made by the Joint Committee. It is, I think, a matter of very great importance. It has been pointed out, however, that in present conditions it would be impracticable to get the services of accountants to carry out these duties in cases where there has not been previously a regular survey of the accounts. I am told that solicitors who have had accountants for years, and who have had their accounts audited or examined in the ordinary way, are themselves finding difficulties in getting the necessary accountancy labour to carry out the work. Therefore, to put this extra work on accountants by bringing in a compulsory examination of the accounts of a large number of firms who have not previously had such examinations would be to introduce a procedure which would break down. It is proposed therefore at a later stage to introduce an Amendment postponing the operation of this Clause until after the war.
Clause 2 deals with the compensation fund. It provides for rules to be made under which a contribution not exceeding £5 would be made by solicitors towards setting up a fund, subject to various conditions which I need not go into in any detail. This will not be postponed beyond the period when the necessary rules can be made. When the preliminary work has been done, the provision will be brought into operation on a date which is to be fixed by the Lord Chancellor. It is right to point out that there are two Clauses, which I think were universally approved at a meeting of the Associated Provincial Law Society, which place two extra burdens on solicitors, I would point out also that at a meeting which was held in London and was attended by 700 members of the Law Society, there was a negligible number of dissenters.
It is necessary for me to say a word about Clause 3. This does not arise out of any recommendations of the Joint


Committee, although the principles which it embodies were referred to in the course of the proceedings and, I think, had the approval of the members of the Committee. It is a proposal under which membership of the Law Society should be compulsory. In the early days, say, 1oo years or more ago, the Law Society was a small body of the leading members, mostly in London, of the solicitor profession. There have been considerable changes since then. Its membership now numbers some 11,000—the total number of practising; solicitors is, I think, some 17,000. Although not all of the 11,000 are practising, the bulk of them are. The Law Society has to carry out many important statutory and other duties connected with the profession. It grants practising certificates, and it has a statutory responsibility for legal education and examination. It has a disciplinary committee, appointed by the Master of the Rolls, to which body members or ex-members of the Society are appointed.
Therefore, there are good grounds for saying that this body, which is now so largely representative and which is carrying out so many duties on behalf of the profession, should be entitled to say that those who practise must be members of it. The proposal was approved by a majority of the members of the Law Society, but it has been pointed out that they naturally would approve it, and that it would be wrong during the war to bring in this new principle, which was not in the original Bill and which, therefore, was not before the Committee, without giving all members of the profession an opportunity of expressing their opinion on it, and making it a condition that, say, two-thirds of all the solicitors, whether members of the Law Society or not, should express their approval of this Clause and the principles which it embodies before it comes into operation.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: Will that affect the large number of people, numbering between 6,000 and 7,000 who do not take out practising certificates, but who nevertheless are solicitors?

The Attorney-General: I was saying that it has been suggested that this Clause ought not to be brought into operation until those who are or are not members of the Law Society have had an opportunity of expressing their opinion on it.

Major Milner: Those who are practising?

The Attorney-General: Yes, Sir, those who are practising.

Mr. Silverman: It applies, surely, to anyone who would be compelled to become a member of the Law Society, if the proposal were carried?

The Attorney-General: That point having been put before those responsible for the Bill, they thought there was substance in it, and they propose therefore to move an Amendment at a later stage, which, I hope, will commend itself to the House, that this Clause should not come into operation until approved by a two-thirds majority of all practising solicitors. That poll could not, of course, take place at the present time, but when times become normal, and when those who are at present out of the country have returned to their normal work, it will be possible to hold it.
That disposes of the important Clauses of the Bill. I might perhaps just refer to Clause 5, which is designed to assist in seeing that the accountant rules, which have been laid down with a view to minimising defalcations, are carried out. A solicitor must make a declaration that he has conformed to the rules. That brings the matter to his attention, because it has been said that not all solicitors realise the existence of these rules. Clause 18 gives the Law Society power to make rules for the keeping of a separate account of any money which a solicitor holds as a trustee in cases where he is either the sole trustee or trustee with a partner or clerk. There are one or two other matters which do not raise any point of principle upon which those responsible for this Measure may desire to put down Amendments on the Order Paper. I do not think, however, that they will raise any point of controversy. I hope, therefore, that this Bill, over which great trouble has been taken by those responsible for it, and which has been brought forward in order to carry out the wishes expressed in all quarters of the House, will receive the uncontroversial reception which it is necessary it should receive if it is, as I hope, to reach the Statute Book.

Major Milner: The House is, I am sure, indebted to the Attorney-General for the very lucid and interesting speech he has made in introducing the Bill now before


us. The speech, I imagine, is one of the few the Attorney-General has delivered without being previously prepared from a brief delivered by a solicitor. The matters to which this Bill refers have caused great concern to the Council of the Law Society, for whom I have the honour to speak, and on whose behalf I may, perhaps, thank the Attorney-General for the very proper tribute he has paid to them. These matters have also caused very great concern to other members of the profession. I imagine that no one realises more than they do the extent of the hardship and suffering which can be caused to wholly innocent people in cases of defalcation, and they also recognise the discredit which such conduct brings upon others in their profession. As the Chairman of the Select Committee said, the profession comprises a body of men of the highest character and probity who are proud of their membership of an ancient and honourable calling. That calling has played no small part in the preservation of our liberties in the past, in the development of our democratic Constitution and in the recognition of that rule of law which together with those other causes, we are at this very moment engaged in fighting to preserve and extend. This Bill is promoted by the Council of the Society, which, of course, under the Master of the Rolls, is the governing body of the profession. The intention of the Bill is, firstly, to endeavour to prevent defalcations occurring at all, secondly, to provide a means of making good, so far as is reasonably possible, any losses which, notwithstanding all that human ingenuity can do, may still come about, and, thirdly, to deal with various ancillary matters of a useful character involving, except perhaps in one or two instances which the Attorney-General has enumerated, no question of principle.
I should like to say a few words to put the problem in its proper perspective. The extent of the evil which the Bill seeks to mitigate should not be exaggerated in any way, and I am afraid that is very often the case. The Press invariably gives great prominence to cases of solicitors defaulting. I recollect one case to which in one newspaper publicity was given no fewer than 16 times. It was reported when the solicitor was found to be missing, when he was arrested, when he was brought up before the local court of summary jurisdiction, when the case

was adjourned, when it was finally heard, and the solicitor was committed to sessions or assizes, when the final trial took place, when the solicitor was eventually made bankrupt, when he appeared for his public examination, when he was finally struck off the Rolls on the recommendation of the disciplinary committee, and so on. I do not complain of that publicity, but I do think it is a fact that quite undue prominence is frequently given to these cases, which gives an entirely false impression to the general public, who imagine that each of these reports is a report of a fresh case. In point of fact, as was said by the Chairman of the Joint Select Committee, all the trouble is caused by the very few, mostly in one-man practices and not in cases of partnership. According to the evidence before the Select Committee the proportion of cases was less than one in 1,000 in any year of those taking out practising certificates, who number some 17,000. That indicates the very small proportion of black sheep in the profession. Further, many of these cases are not in the first instance deliberate cases; of fraud. I do not excuse them in any way,, but they are cases in the first place of carelessness, casual treatment of moneys, bad bookkeeping and so on. I therefore submit that the evil is not so frequent or so widespread as is commonly thought, although the consequences even of one case are serious to those affected. However small the evil is, the profession are anxious to take every step in their power to reduce it.
May I make one or two other general observations which may perhaps remove misconceptions. It is sometimes thought that the solicitors' branch of the legal profession is a rich one. It is not. It was given in evidence before the Select Committee, of which, along with the hon. Member for South-West St. Pancras (Sir G. Mitcheson) and the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), I was a member, that the average income of solicitors in this country is less than £400 a year. That is, no doubt, largely due to the fact that there is a large number of solicitors who take out practising certificates as clerks to other solicitors. Nevertheless the figure is a striking one. The truth is that the profession is grossly overcrowded, and I commend that observation to the parents of those who may perhaps be considering entrance into the solicitors'


branch of the profession. It is frequently also thought that solicitors have tremendous privileges of some kind. They have one or two. They have the privilege of audience on behalf of other people in certain courts, usually along with members of the Bar. They have the privilege of taking legal proceedings on behalf of other people, and they have certain qualifications for certain appointments. That is about all nowadays, particularly when people, frequently to their regret, permit work to be done and documents, from memoranda and articles of companies to wills and agreements, to be prepared for them by all kinds of people who are quite unqualified and who, incidentally, are entitled to advertise and to tout for business, which of course is forbidden to members of the legal profession. Solicitors are also, I believe, the only profession whose charges are for the most part determined not by themselves but by law, and by a taxing master in cases of dispute: therefore any additional burden assumed by solicitors—and there are additional burdens assumed by them in this Bill— cannot be passed on to clients.
Another fact which is little if at all well known is that the solicitor is the most highly taxed professional man in the country, quite unjustifiably so, in my submission. The matter is of some slight historical interest at present. In 1784 Mr. Pitt, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, sought to raise a loan and new taxes to deal with the financial situation consequent upon the American War of Independence, which had then recently ended. In introducing his Budget, he said he was at a disadvantage in connection with any taxes he proposed to introduce and that the most palatable and popular taxes had long since been exhausted. Certain taxes were suggested by him on servants, retail shops, pawnbrokers, post horses and so on, when some Metropolitan Member of the House called out, "Why not tax the attorneys?" The result of that was, quite illogically, that Mr. Pitt introduced in place of the tax on shops a tax on attorneys and solicitors, which has remained until the present day and which has serious consequences on many solicitors.
In considering this Bill and the increased burdens which solicitors are assuming, the House ought therefore to have certain facts in mind with regard to payments made by solicitors as compared

with payments made by other professions. The solicitor pays £80 stamp on his articles, a fee of £25 on admission to the Rolls and an annual fee on his practising certificate of £9 in London and £6 in the provinces. On the other hand, the profession which the learned Attorney-General adorns, whose fees are proportionately much greater than those earned by the lower branch of the profession, pays £50 on his articles, £25 on admission, and no more. An estate or house agent pays 2s. 6d. on his articles and an annual fee of £2. A chartered accountant, not an un-prosperous profession, pays 2s. 6d. on his articles and nothing more. An architect pays 10s. on his articles and no more, while a doctor pays is and no more. There is no logical basis for the disparity between the various professions, and I hope that some future Chancellor of the Exchequer will be moved by a sense of justice to mitigate some of these heavy payments. I claim that in the circumstances which I have set out the Law Society, as the Attorney-General indicated, and the solicitors' profession as a whole, which passed these proposals by a tremendous majority, are entitled to some credit for assuming the additional obligations and burdens imposed by this Bill.
The first of these obligations is set out in Clause I, which requires every practising solicitor to deliver to the Registrar a certificate, signed by an accountant showing that he has examined the books and accounts of the solicitor and stating whether or not from his examination and the information and explanations given to him he is satisfied, and, if he is not satisfied, the matters in respect of which he is not satisfied, that the Solicitor has complied with the provisions of the solicitors' accounts rules. That certificate has to be obtained once every year. This clearly involves the employment of an accountant. There are exceptions to this obligation, for example, a solicitor who is a town clerk or anything of that sort in the whole-time employment of a local authority. In the event of the certificate not being produced or not being satisfactory, it will be the duty of the council of the Law Society or a committee appointed by the council to consider the case. There may be cases of delay or accidental slips where no harm has been done to anyone. On the other hand, there may be cases where there is


serious non-compliance, or where there are suggestions that the solicitor has failed to pay into his client's account money he ought to have paid, or that he has improperly used money. In those cases it will be the function of the Council of the Law Society to recommend that proceedings be taken before the disciplinary committee, which is an independent body appointed and removable by the Master of the Rolls. Before that committee the solicitor will have the opportunity of giving his explanation, and the committee will have the right to impose punishment such as striking off the roll, suspension of practice, or the payment of a fine not exceeding £ 500, which, incidentally will also go to the Treasury.
In the proceedings before the Select Committee it was suggested that the employment of an accountant was not a very serious obligation and that it might cost, perhaps, in small cases £10 10s. When I point out that in my own practice I pay an accountant, and have done for many years, over 100 guineas a year, and no doubt larger firms pay a good deal more, it will be appreciated that this Clause is, indeed, adding a heavy burden to those already carried by solicitors. There are, however, many solicitors, particularly in one-man practices, who do not have such accountants and who will now be compelled to have them. The Attorney-General mentioned the position arising owing to the war. It was the almost unanimous wish of the profession, as indicated at the meeting of which the Attorney-General spoke, that this provision should be brought in at the earliest possible moment. Owing to the war that has been found impossible. Accountants are suffering from shortage of staff and great pressure of work, while many solicitors are in the Forces. As there was opposition to the Clause on that account and the Government were not willing to give facilities to the Bill unless it was non-controversial, the Law Society had to give way. In Committee an Amendment will be moved to postpone the operation of the Clause. Nevertheless, I am confident that as soon as the Bill passes the very fact that the Clause is in the Bill will have a salutary effect in cases where accounts are not already kept satisfactorily.
The second proposal is to set up a compensation fund under which every practising

solicitor will be legally liable to pay £5 every year to the council of the Law Society for the purpose of making grants to indemnify or mitigate losses, if there be any-—and I hope there may not be many—still sustained by persons in consequence of the dishonesty of solicitors. Various conditions are imposed into which I need not go. There is one tribute which I ought to pay. It was suggested at one stage that certain classes of solicitors might be exempted from these payments, for example town clerks or solicitors in the whole-time employment of county councils or urban or rural district councils. The clerks of those authorities have, through a committee, been consulted by the Law Society, and they very properly, if I may say so, at once agreed that, as the object of the fund would be to maintain the reputation of the profession and retain the confidence of the public in it, they are just as much concerned as solicitors in private practice and should therefore pay their contribution.
There are some 17,000 practising solicitors in England and Wales, so that the fund may be expected to produce something like £80,000 per annum, a sum considerably in excess of the average amount of the defalcations which have taken place, unfortunately, ever a period of years, and it is expected that this contribution will be amply sufficient. I ought to say this, perhaps, to remove any misapprehension: It is clear that it was not possible for the Law Society, or indeed any body of men, to undertake to give complete indemnity in all cases, for the reason that it is quite impossible to estimate the extent of the losses which may occur, but it is confidently hoped that the amount of the fund will be sufficient, and that when the provisions of the Bill, and particularly of Clause I, which relates to the examination of accounts, are in full working order, the losses suffered by the clients of solicitors will be greatly diminished and eventually, it is hoped, done away with altogether.
The House has been good enough to bear with me for rather a long time, and I will be as brief as possible in dealing with the rest of the Bill. In the main all the other Clauses were in the Bill of 1939 and were approved by the Joint Select Committee, but I should like to deal with one or two of the exceptions. Clause 3 makes it compulsory for every practising solicitor


to become a member of the Law Society. This Clause has been inserted in pursuance of a resolution passed at the largest meeting of solicitors which has ever been held, I think. It was passed there by a substantial majority, and, again, was approved on a poll which was held by post. I have taken a somewhat personal interest in this proposal, have to some extent fathered it, because I believe that it is the duty of all of us to join our appropriate professional or trade organisations or trade unions. If every solicitor had to join the Law Society it would give the Society greater power, it would be of great advantage both to the public and to the members and would add to the safeguards provided by the Bill. It was stated before the Select Committee that the proportion of defaulters among those who were not members of the Law Society was considerably greater than among those who were members, for one reason because members of the Law Society are kept closely in touch, through the Society's "Gazette," and by other means, with up-to-date procedure and correct conduct in the profession.
Many people imagine that all solicitors are members of the Law Society. Unfortunately that is not the case. There are 17,000 practising solicitors, of whom 11,000 are members of the Society. I regret to say that here, again, objection has been made to this particular Clause being inserted in the Bill, objection emanating principally, I think I am right in saying, from solicitors who are not members of the Society, and against my will, certainly, it has been necessary for the Law Society to agree that this provision shall not come into force until after a two-thirds majority of those voting in a poll has been obtained.
The other provisions of the Bill are very largely in the nature of an improvement in, or a tightening up of, existing procedure. They include an amended form of declaration which has to be made by a solicitor, and if he commits a breach of that declaration he will lay himself open to severe penalties. They also relieve the Master of the Rolls, under whose authority the profession is conducted, from certain formal duties, and they also provide for a discretion to prohibit certain solicitors, where the Council of the Law Society are satisfied that it is a proper case, from taking an articled clerk

or employing a clerk who has been a party to the professional misconduct of another solicitor.
I feel that I ought not to trespass further on the good nature of the House, and I will conclude by commending the Bill to the House as a courageous effort, under difficult circumstances, to ensure that in future the interests both of the public and the profession may be better safeguarded than in the past, so that those who come after us may have no cause to regret having entrusted the conduct of their affairs to the custody of any member of the solicitors' branch of the great legal profession, and so that our British principles of justice, equity and the rule of law may remain untarnished forever.

Sir Annesley Somerville: Today we are taking part in the achievement of a very large number of reforms which have been long overdue, and the general public ought to be grateful to the Attorney-General and to the Government for the opportunity now afforded of obtaining a Second Reading for this Measure. The Attorney-General has given a very clear account of the progress of this Measure. Twelve years ago I had the opportunity of introducing in this House a Measure on similar lines. I did so on behalf of a group of Members who were interested in the matter. The guiding spirit among them was Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel, now Lord Mancroft, to whom great credit is due for his continual efforts to bring about this reform and who has recently taken part in getting the Measure through another place. Another Member of the House who took a great interest in it was the then Senior Member for Cambridge University, Sir John Withers. He was president of the Law Society, but resigned his presidency in order to forward the reform. Since that time the Law Society has taken up the matter and has obtained practically the unanimous consent of its members to this Measure. As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner) has said, the occasions for this reform are comparatively few, and there are no persons who more strongly desire reform than the members of the great profession concerned. We may say that the whole of the legal profession is in favour of the reform. The Bill was guided through the other House by one of his Majesty's judges, and I understand


that the whole of the Bar and the whole of the Bench are in favour of the Measure. The Measure itself contains two main provisions. There are, first, the audit of accounts and, secondly, the compensation fund. The compromise that has been agreed to by the Attorney-General seems to be proper. We have in this Measure, which has the support of the whole of the legal profession, all the reasonable protection that the public may naturally expect when they take reasonable care of their own property.

Mr. Douglas: This Bill has been introduced, as the Attorney-General said, at the instance of a private organisation, the Law Society. In order that it should be discussed in the House, the Government have given it facilities which would not otherwise have been afforded. I do not complain about that, because I think that out of discussion some improvements may come. The main purpose of the Bill, of course, is to protect the public against the defalcations of solicitors, and it is on that account that the Government have helped it forward, but it also has a number of other objects. One of those objects is to impose compulsory membership of the Law Society upon every practising solicitor. I think it is highly improper for any body—I do not care what it is—or any association, to seek to promote legislation imposing upon everybody who happens to practise that profession the obligation to be a member of a society of this kind. It is entirely irrelevant to suggest that this body is something in the nature of a trade union. I am sure the members of the Council of the Law Society would indignantly repudiate any suggestion of that kind. I never expect to see the Law Society applying to the Trades Union Congress for affiliation to that body, and if it did, I am perfectly certain the Trades Union Congress would refuse it, because it is not an association of employees or workpeople. It is a professional association including people who are employers, and probably the majority of whom are employers. It is not in any sense a trade union, and in any case this House has not yet committed itself to the principle of compulsory trade union membership. I say it is improper to impose compulsory membership of a society upon people practising some occupation.
The protection which it is proposed to give to the public takes two forms. There is, first, the provision that accounts shall be kept and audited and an auditor's certificate be procured at the expense not of the State but of the solicitor. That is an obligation which is not imposed upon people practising any other profession or upon individuals carrying on any other kind of occupation. It is something entirely novel, but I think it has some merits, because it may be the means, if systematically employed, of preventing people from slipping inadvertently or carelessly into a position in which they mix up their own money with that of their clients and so take the first step in many cases towards more serious offences. I am not going to complain of that proposal in itself, but it has a bearing upon a point which I will come to presently.
The other way in which it is proposed to protect the public is by establishing a compensation fund to which solicitors are to be compelled to make a contribution as a condition of practising at all. Compulsion upon them is absolute and cannot be escaped by any means. That is a provision which is entirely contrary to the policy of the Common Law of this country. It has never so far been admitted in any case, because it is a proposal to enable people to insure themselves against the consequence's of criminal conduct. Any contract of that kind which anybody attempted to enter into at the present moment would be absolutely void as against public policy, but it is now proposed to give statutory authority to an arrangement by which solicitors will have to contribute to a fund for the purpose of compensating people who suffer loss by the defalcations of solicitors.
I may add incidentally that it ought to be made clear to the public that although this fund will be brought into existence, no person who suffers loss will have any statutory right to benefit by the fund, because its administration will be entirely at the discretion of the Council of the Law Society, and they will decide whether they will make any payment in a particular case or not. Not only is it proposed that solicitors should make a compulsory contribution to this fund, but it is also proposed that the contribution shall be made at a flat rate—the sum suggested in £5 a year—irrespective of the economic position of the solicitor, irrespective of whether the income he


derives from his profession is large or small. In fact, those who are most badly off will be compelled to contribute an equal amount for the benefit of those who make the most profit out of their profession. That seems to me to be highly inequitable and highly unfair. If the contribution were in proportion to the income made by practising the profession, at any rate it might be said that the burden was distributed in equal fashion.
Now let us look at what the total effect of this and of existing legislation will be upon solicitors. At the present moment a solicitor in London is compelled to pay an annual fee of £9 before he can practise his profession. He is compelled to pay a registration fee of £1 to the Law Society. In addition to that, it is proposed that he shall pay £5 towards the compensation fund, that he shall pay for the audit of his accounts a sum which the Law Society themselves estimate as a minimum of ten guineas a year, perhaps more, and that he shall be compelled to be a member of the Law Society and pay the annual subscription of three guineas a year. I think that amounts to a total of £28 13s. a year each, which every solicitor in London will be compelled to pay, and three pounds less in the provinces.
In addition to that, the solicitor has had to pay £80 as Stamp Duty to the State upon his articles of apprenticeship and £25 Stamp Duty to the State as a tax upon his admission certificate. That is £105 of capital taxation or, spread over a life of 30 years, let us say, about £3 10s. a year. So we get a total of nearly £32 a year which is to be imposed as a statutory obligation upon people practising this profession. The Law Society themselves have stated that the average income of a solicitor is about £400 a year. In all these averages of income it is obvious that the incomes of a few who happen to do remarkably well swell the average, and therefore it is obvious that the majority of solicitors are making less than £400 a year. Out of that income they will be compelled to make these contributions of one kind or another, amounting to a total of some £32 a year. There is no other profession in this country which is obliged to submit to an imposition of that kind.
If, as the Government have admitted, the Bill raises an important question of public policy which ought to be dealt with, the Government ought to take into

account the position of solicitors and to remit the taxes which are at present imposed upon them, if they are going to add these new statutory burdens. It is only equitable that the Government should redress this injustice, which would, in any case, have been an injustice—as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner) has said—produced by pure accident in 1784 by William Pitt who, although he professed to be a follower of Adam Smith, appeared to put into practice the full maxims of Colbert of plucking the goose with the least amount of squawking. As solicitors were a small body, and uninfluential as compared with the retail traders whom he proposed to tax in the first place, the sales tax was shifted on to them, where it has remained ever since. I believe that on not less than 10 or 11 occasions Parliament has passed Motions admitting that it was an unjust and unfair tax.
For those reasons the Government, if they think these further obligations ought to be imposed, ought to come to the relief of solicitors by relieving them of the burdens which are placed upon them. I placed an Amendment upon the Order Paper because I feel strongly about this question. I do not want to defeat the main purpose which underlies the Bill of affording a reasonable degree of protection to people, but solicitors are subject to burdens which are not imposed upon other people who handle money which does not belong to them. Auctioneers, estate agents, bankers, and companies handle the money of other people, but none of them is compelled to submit to these requirements or has obligations imposed upon them of this kind. I repudiate any suggestion that solicitors are less honest and trustworthy than any of those other people, upon whom Parliament has not chosen to impose these liabilities. I therefore hope that I shall have the assistance of hon. Members when the Bill comes to the Committee stage in helping to rectify some of these injustices, and in that hope I propose to withdraw the Amendment which stands in my name upon the Order Paper.

Rear-Admiral Beamish: I have listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member, but I must say that I am not greatly impressed with the argument, which would hold up the Bill for an indefinite period. I hope to


mention a point or two to support my view. I am particularly interested, because I made a promise many years ago to support such a Bill, and once having embarked upon it I have had no lack of encouragement and no evidence to cause me to change my views as to the necessity for such a Bill. When one looks back at the history of this matter one realises that, from what might be called the impossible, we are very near to the stage of achievement.
More than one individual has remarked to me what a solicitor also said: ''Oh, you are the man who hates all lawyers." Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have been subject, as many of us have been, to stringent laws. I am subject now to the Naval Discipline Act, which carries with it the fiercest retribution. I agree with all those laws. This Bill will be a law, which I hope will help solicitors. We ought all to remember the Latin, which says:
"Ut metus ad omnes pœna ad paucos perveniret." 
Everybody should fear and understand that things may happen, but that retribution may reach but very few people. In all sincerity, I support the Bill for the honour and welfare of a profession which I look upon as indispensable, and whose activities and good name have been and are being circumscribed, restricted and endangered by the criminal actions of a minute minority. Over a period of years, the number per annum is tiny, compared with the 17,000 practising solicitors. With all reasonable men I admire the warm humanity and ripe wisdom of a good solicitor. How much preferable is that warm humanity and ripe wisdom to the cold impersonality of the banks and even of accountants and public trustees, who are rapidly taking over a great deal of the work done so admirably in the past by solicitors. I am strongly averse to banks, accountants, and public trustees absorbing the work of solicitors and removing the basis of our essential reliance upon the profession.
This is a mutual guarantee Bill. There is nothing new about it except that it is new in this House. Bills of this type have been passed by New Zealand, Queensland, and New South Wales. I believe I am right in saying that some legal society in Scotland, about whose name I am not clear, has entirely approved the whole

principle of the Bill. There is nothing new in the suggestion of a fidelity or guarantee or compensation fund—call it what you will. The principle of compensation has been objected to by the lion. Member who just spoke, I understand. He made some criticisms of it, as he was fully entitled to do. Some of them I agree with, but only in part. After all, this compensation is a very old system indeed, and it extends to a very great many other enterprises and some other professions. It is to be seen, and has been seen in the past, among the banks, certainly among insurance companies, and it has been my experience, while serving abroad in the Navy, to see the system of mutual guarantee utilised by commercial houses in order to keep up the credit either of individuals or of some special community for which the establishment and buttressing of credit is of enormous importance. I must confess with some little surprise that during all the centuries solicitors have been working they have never mutually agreed to help one another in order to protect the public against that very small, but very irritating and constantly recurring criminality reported in the Press in connection with defaulting solicitors.
I do hope there will be real generosity in connection with this compensation when the sums are paid out. Naturally the Bill protects the Law Society against gold-digging. They are right to protect themselves, but I would ask that they should remember that compensation means ''Recompense, remuneration, amends." I am told—I have no figures to go on, but I have read it in more than one place—that the annual sum taken away from members of the public approaches something like £60,000 a year, and I was glad to hear my hon. and learned Friend say that the recompense or compensation fund would amount to a great deal more than that. I sincerely hope that it will never be necessary to apply all that amount of money, but one realises that that sum of £60,000, judging from the records of the courts, comes in most instances from people who are certainly very much to be pitied because their faith and trust in a solicitor have been destroyed, or from people who have been left in the gravest difficulties. Many cases have been reported to me. One woman wrote to me and said, "It is no consolation to me that retribution should have come upon this man and that


he should have got penal servitude." It is certainly no compensation.
The only other thing I want to say is this: I have made as careful a study as a layman can of the question of the annual audit of accounts, and I have talked it over with accountants and so on. I am assured by such people as I have been able to get in contact with that the difficulties associated with a complete and very exact and annual audit is not as great as it is said to be, and although I agree that difficulties do exist during the war, I hope that if any alteration is made it will be in the direction of a more accurate and detailed audit than the Bill already suggests. If I put down an Amendment to that effect in order to get a statement from the Attorney-General I hope I shall be forgiven. I am told that solicitors of good standing insist at the present time upon the fullest possible audit of their accounts, and I see no reason why that should not be extended. The Bill is a very welcome one. The solicitors' profession is part of our national and family life, and one which is admired and imitated by all other countries. I therefore wish the Bill well and the solicitors' profession likewise.

Mr. Garro Jones: I do not propose to detain the House for more than two or three minutes, but I think it is just as well to state that many of us would approve this Bill not solely from the standpoint of the legal profession but from the standpoint of the interests of the public as a whole. There can be no doubt that the principal reasons why the Bill has been given these unusual facilities is the provision in Clause 2, under which the public are to be protected, nominally at any rate, against defalcations on the part of solicitors or their agents. I, therefore, want to make two suggestions, which I hope it is not yet too late to make, as to how the Bill can be improved in its passage through the House on the Committee stage. I should like the Attorney-General to be good enough to understand quite clearly that though it has been agreed by us that the Bill is not to be regarded as a controversial Bill, that does not mean that we regard it as a perfect Measure not susceptible of amendment. Indeed, we think it is susceptible of amendment, and have not agreed with complete ease of mind to its passage through the House and Committee.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Battersea (Mr. Douglas) pointed out that under the main provision of the Bill in Clause 2 there is no obligation whatever upon the Law Society to pa}' out any sum in compensation for losses by defalcation against which this Bill is mainly intended to provide. I must say I view that absolute discretion given to the Law Society with some misgivings. The Law Society have not always shown themselves to be a body with very wide and broad views. Everybody knows that the Coun-cil of the Law Society consists of the wealthiest members of the solicitors' branch of the legal profession, and whether it is a body which will be able to administer with complete impartiality the large fund which will eventually be built up under Clause 2 of this Bill is a matter upon which two opinions might reasonably be held. I therefore want to suggest to the right hon. and learned Attorney-General that the Law Society, in framing the rules which they are charged to make under Clause 2, should be obliged to submit them for approval to some legal authority. I would perhaps suggest the Master of the Rolls as being the most appropriate judicial authority to whom the rules might be submitted before they come into force.
Admittedly we are in an experimental sphere in attempting to foresee how this fund will be administered. For that reason it has been found impossible to lay upon the fund the obligation to pay all claims in full. There is no limit to the possible amount. One defalcation might be for many millions of pounds, and, therefore, it is impossible to say what proportion of defalcations should be met. It is not that the number of solicitors who are guilty of these malpractices is large. We all know they are a very small proportion. But sometimes the amount involved is very large, and one cannot tell how large the total amount may be. It will take some years of experience, and of the collection of figures, before we can get any reliable guide as to what proportion of losses has actually to be compensated for, and I hope the Attorney-General will therefore be good enough to consider, and perhaps to have consultations on, if he thinks necessary, the suggestion that the rules should be submitted when they are first made, and perhaps every three or four years thereafter, to the Master of the Rolls for approval or confirmation.
The second point to which I wish very briefly to draw the attention of the House is a point which arises in the Third Schedule. It is a point of principle. The Solicitors Act, 1932, made many drastic provisions to prevent persons not members of the legal profession from preparing any documents or carrying out any duties which have been thought to be the exclusive preserve of the legal profession. Various penalties were imposed under the Act for persons who tried to participate in this form of legal practice. This Schedule makes a very drastic amendment to most of these restrictions. It lays open to penalties a person who prepares these legal documents, it may be a will or some very simple form of legal document. Many forms of legal documents are undoubtedly prepared by laymen, by accountants, and by persons who could not possibly afford the assistance of qualified legal practitioners. I think it is going a little far to lay upon such persons the burden of proof that they are carrying out these duties without expectation of fee, gain or reward, directly or indirectly. It is very hard for any man to prove that he has no such expectations. Very heavy penalties may be imposed upon him. I invite my hon. Friends to be a little broader than the view of the legal profession. We must be particularly careful when we are legislating on matters affecting the legal profession to see that the interests of the public are even more, perhaps, than in other cases safeguarded by the provisions we make. It is for that reason that I have attempted to detach myself from the purely legal point of view to make these two suggestions as to how the public might be better protected.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.— [Mr. Holdsworth.]

NATIONAL WAR EFFORT (TRANSPORT).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Holdsworth.]

Mr. Ellis Smith: The Adjournment provides us with an opportunity to get back to our war effort, and I desire

to raise two aspects of the administration of the Ministry of War Transport which many people consider are of extreme urgency. In my view and in the view of a large number of people throughout the country attention should be given to these questions at once. They are, first, adequate transport for workpeople engaged on essential work, and, second, the serious effect on production of the increase in accidents. I want to quote first of all from the Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories. He states:
Another irony of the war situation is that while the modern housing estates have taken the factory workers away from the centre of the towns and into better surroundings, this has created a traffic problem in the blackout which has led to the prolongation of the working day and sapped the workers' energy to a very considerable extent. The transport position was examined by Inspectors in connection with applications for Orders permitting emergency hours for women or young children, and the matter is now being put on a sounder footing through the efforts of the Ministry of Transport and the welfare officers of the Ministry of Labour. I still feel, however, that transport difficulties need the serious attention of all concerned as a vital matter for the preservation of the health and well-being of the factory worker.
I have quoted from that document in order to provide some evidence in addition to the evidence I shall provide. At the recent Trades Union Congress great concern was expressed by representative people who are directly in touch with industrial affairs with regard to the inadequate transport services. I have raised this matter several times during the past two years, but unfortunately attention has not been given to the question in the way it should have been, or we should never have been in the position in which we are. Therefore I wish to provide as much evidence as possible in order to stimulate the authorities with the need for dealing with the matter as urgently as possible. Mr. A. Henderson, the Regional Transport Commissioner for Scotland, speaking in Edinburgh a short time ago, said that the bus transport problem was reaching serious proportions and that it was essential that something of a positive character should be done to secure priority for workers going to, or coming from, their employment. There was a debate at the last meeting of the Manchester and Salford Trades Council of which I have a report before me. I shall not give the whole of the evidence which was before that meeting, but here are one or two extracts


from the report. A resolution was before the Council from a number of branches of the Transport and General Workers' Union and other organisations making up the transport group. This is a responsible body that would only consider resolutions of this character if they were worthy of being considered, and this was the resolution:
That this Manchester and Salford Trades Council desire to place on record the dissatisfaction prevailing at the action of various transport authorities and the Commissioner in economising by curtailing essential services at the expense of the workers. Further, that so-called absenteeism would be abolished if transport authorities would give the travelling public due notice of the change of time-tables instead of the 24 hours which is usual.
Several speakers spoke in favour of that, and here are one or two extracts from their speeches. The mover of the resolution, representing the Transport and General Workers' Union, referred to the scheme for the curtailment of the local service, which he said was already totally inadequate, and said that many of the difficulties were due to the regulations and by-laws and not to the road staff, who were often blamed. He asked for support so that the transport workers could give a real service. The state of the transport industry was chaotic. Another delegate gave details of many local difficulties which he thought could be remedied by local administrative action so that loss of working hours could be avoided. The buses should run nearer to the factories, and there should be more co-ordination. I will give extracts from the Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. They stated that these avoidable causes should be effectively dealt with at once. The Report continues:
The provision of special trains and buses at right times is essential, but adequate arrangements do not seem to have been made. It is unfair to expect workers to be punctual or regular in their attendance in such circumstances.
They recommended that it should be a primary duty of the Ministry of Supply to arrange adequate transport. In this morning's newspapers I saw a report of the demonstration in the Midlands about inadequate transport facilities. I learned very early in my industrial life that there is never smoke without some fire. There must be something wrong when workers with the spirit which is manifested in industrial areas at present resort to demonstrations of that character.
I will ask the Parliamentary Secretary several questions, to which, I think, we are entitled to an unequivocal answer. What steps have been taken to prevent a repetition of our last winter's experience? Is the Minister satisfied that there will be adequate transport during the forthcoming winter for all engaged in essential work? May I point out that thousands are now using bicycles, that they will cease doing so next month, and that this will put an additional strain on the already inadequate transport facilities? What is considered a reasonable time for workpeople engaged on essential work to wait for a bus? Are the transport authorities being brought together to arrange to co-ordinate their activities? If so, what are the results? Are running rights allowed to be preserved to the detriment of much-needed through services? Will the Minister instruct all regional commissioners to take action on this point at once, where necessary? Pre-war carrying restrictions should be removed. As many people as possible should be carried in rush hours. There should be more through running and interchange of services by joint arrangement. As far as possible, people should be carried from door to door. Instructions should be sent to all local authorities and to the police that people must queue up for buses.
I saw the other day that the Minister of War Transport had appealed to employers to stagger working hours. Within reason, and after consultation, they should be compelled to do so, as part of the war effort. We do not appeal to men to join the Armed Forces. Three years ago, before the war broke out, this House took steps to deal with that matter. Yet we merely appeal to vested interests, instead of compelling them. I would like the Minister to instruct transport authorities to increase the carrying capacity of their buses, wherever possible. I read a report recently of one area having, as a result of certain action by the Ministry of Transport, increased the carrying capacity of their buses from 40 to 60. Empty buses should not be allowed on the roads. This matter has been raised in several areas, and the authorities have replied, "But we have no conductors for these buses." It is said that these buses just take people to their employment or bring them away, and that they then run several miles, in some cases back to their garages without picking anyone up.


Motorists have been urged to pick up people where they can, and most motorists are prepared to do so. It must be equally right that people who are waiting for transport should be picked up by buses. A survey should be made of all seaside resorts and other centres not engaged on work of national importance, and they should give up whatever buses they can spare to areas which need additional services.
I have been speaking so far from a national point of view. I want, very briefly, to speak from the point of view of the large industrial area which it is my privilege to represent here. In North Staffordshire we suffer more than is the case in many other areas, and this House has a serious responsibility for our situation, because it threw out a Bill one night at 11 o'clock which would have provided us with an adequate system. However, I do not want to raise a controversial issue. Therefore, will the position be satisfactory in North Staffordshire this winter in regard to the transport needs of that area? On 21st August a man worked 12 hours at the Shelton steelworks, and anyone who has been through a steelworks and knows what a man has to do in front of their furnaces will have sympathy with the issue I am raising. He worked with very little clothing on. On the way home he had to stand in a queue at Hanley in the pouring rain for 40 minutes, waiting for a bus. Is that considered reasonable in view of the spirit in which our people are exerting themselves in order to get maximum production? I could give extract after extract from the local newspapers, but I will content myself with two. One was signed by Mr. C. W. Brown, M. I. Min. E., Secretary of the North Staffordshire Colliery Under-managers' Association, and appeared in the "Evening Sentinel" of 18th July. It says:
It would be interesting to know what is wrong with the early morning bus services which serve the North Staffordshire collieries. There has been a lot of talk about miners' absenteeism of late, but sometimes the men are not able to get there. Workmen are having to walk from Hanley to Newcastle because the buses which run between the times 5.2 to 5.20 either do not turn up in time or, in some cases, fail to run. I myself have had to walk to Newcastle to meet the bus to one colliery. This morning the bus due to leave Newcastle at 5.35 did not appear until 6.10.

Just imagine the effect upon miners getting up with their wives at four o'clock in the morning, having their food packed, going to a bus stop at 5.35 and finding no bus turning up until 6.10. The letter goes on:
Half the men from both Newcastle and the Milehouse being too late for work went home again and these are booked as absentees and will lose their week's attendance bonus. All this is not very encouraging to men to produce that extra coal which the nation sorely needs. There should be a tightening up of the services. On behalf of the miners concerned, I am, yours faithfully, C. W. Brown, Secretary, North Staffordshire Colliery Under-managers' Association.
Here is an extract from another letter to the "Evening Sentinel" which appeared on 7th August:
What has happened to the bus service? It has been pretty bad all week but last night was the limit. … Lots of people waited 30 or 40 minutes and some even an hour before they could get on their way to their destinations. … In fact, thousands more than usual are wanting transport.
That should be enough evidence. If many of my hon. Friends had been here, they could have produced further evidence of their experiences to prove the importance of this matter. We are now well into September, and I hope the Government have given this question their attention. I would like to know whether the Ministries of Labour, Supply and War Transport have had consultations with a view to planning adequate services during this winter. I have been informed on very high authority that many of the personnel difficulties that the Ministries of Labour and Supply are confronted with would be solved if the transport problem was adequately tackled.
My next point is in regard to the increasing number of accidents on the road, particularly in the industrial centres. Unfortunately, the majority of the people affected are the very young and the very old, and when young people are injured they are often handicapped for life, which means that the effect on production is serious. In addition to that, they have to go into hospitals, where, after air raids, beds are urgently required for those suffering from the consequences of enemy action. From every point of view it is vitally necessary that we should take action to deal with this growing problem of accidents in industrial areas. I have statistical evidence which will show that we are not dealing with this matter. During


the war accidents to pedestrians have increased by 77 per cent, and to motor cyclists by 21 per cent. The increase in accidents to adults is 48 per cent, and to children 22 per cent. The total increase in accidents since the war is 44 per cent.
A large percentage of these accidents to adults occurred during the black-out, and I want to ask what steps have been taken with regard to this particular matter. In my view vehicles should be further slowed down in industrial and built-up areas. Nothing gives me greater concern, when the alert has sounded in the area in which I live, to see motorists speeding along, often with bright head lights that are supposed to be partially blacked out. I have been told by friends of mine in the Royal Air Force that when there is a procession of such cars in an industrial area bearings can be taken by pilots. This is a serious matter. Moreover, motorists ought to give preference to pedestrians. It should be their duty to pull up at a right of way. Have local authorities painted white lines and kerbs to a sufficient extent, and have they taken advantage of the provision of white studs? Not only should a circular be sent out on these points, but Regional Commissioners should be given instructions to survey their areas so that as far as possible accidents can be eliminated.
In conclusion, I would like to suggest that the Ministries of Labour and Transport and, if necessary, the Home Office, should get together to plan a campaign based on the necessity for educating the people on the need for precautions and safety first. Prior to the war this used to be carried out periodically, but now, I am sorry to say, due to the fact that most of us have to deal with other questions, this matter has been neglected. It is a matter which has a serious effect on production, because a household, relations and neighbours are affected when a person is injured. I suggest that all local authorities, trade councils, chambers of commerce and welfare officers should be asked to get together and have local consultations to arrange for a joint educational campaign which will have for its object "Safety First," so as to minimise accidents wherever possible.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: I should like to thank the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary

Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport for the Written Reply which he made to-day to a suggestion I put forward some weeks ago concerning the abolition of first-class compartments on the suburban railway lines of London. I am glad that decision has been taken. I wonder whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman can tell us what increased number of seats this will mean for the third-class passengers, because probably there will now be 20 people riding in a compartment which formerly contained three or four people. Another matter to which I want to refer is the number of cars per train. I wonder whether it is the Minister's intention to make any suggestions concern-this matter to the railway companies, particularly with regard to the electrified lines. During the last week or two, I have seen trains of three or four cars packed to capacity. I hope that the officers of the railway companies will keep a close watch on this matter, because it rather seems to me that the railway companies are carrying economy to limits which are, unfortunately, not to the advantage of the passengers. I should like to have some general statement from the Minister as to how this decision will be applied and what effects it will have.
I want now to refer to the position in the provinces, particularly in the industrial North. For obvious reasons, I shall not mention any particular towns. There is a vast difference between living in London or in the suburbs of London and living in the industrial North. If in London we have to travel 10 or 12 miles after leaving work, we can invariably get home in half on hour or in less than an hour; within an hour we are at home enjoying a cup of tea or an evening meal. But that is not the case with the Unfortunate munitions or industrial workers in the North of England. In some areas they have to wait in a queue for well over an hour before they can even get on to a 'bus. The workers, or the unions representing them, may make appeals to the local transport manager, the local corporation or the bus company, but those appeals are of no avail. After several weeks an extra bus may be put into service, or some adjustment may be made, but by the time this is done the factory or a neighbouring factory may take on another 200 or 300 workers, so that the problem becomes intensified, and by the time the adjustment is made the position is worse than it was originally.
I know of at least two areas in the industrial North—and I believe the Minister knows of them also—where cotton operatives have been taken from their own employment and transferred to ordinance factories and other industries. They have to queue up for tramcars or 'buses in the morning to get to the railway station, they travel on the railway for it may be 12 miles, and then they have to get to their new factories two or three miles out in the country, and again have to take a 'bus. This means that in order to travel 12 or 14 miles they probably have to use three forms of transport and to make two changes. But that is not all. They may find that the bus which they had intended to catch has been commandeered by some 30 or 40 workers who came on some other transport system from another area, they may be at the end of the queue, and probably by the time they arrive at their factory they are a quarter of an hour late. The same thing happens again at night. In the end, when they take stock of what has happened to them from the time they left home in the morning, they find that their 8-hour or 10-hour day has become a 14-hour or 15-hour day. These people have no time to go to the pictures at night, or to enjoy leisure or relaxation, for they are fully occupied in travelling to and from their work.
I am sure that other hon. Members could testify to the correctness of what I have said. The people in these areas are asking their Members of Parliament why the Ministry of War Transport cannot allocate to those areas some of the buses for which there is very little use in other areas. They are asking why they cannot have sent to them some form of assistance of the sort that has been sent to London. I do not know whether hon. Members know what is happening in this respect in London, but I have knowledge of the position. In one factory of which I know, there were 50 new workers coming in on Monday of last week. They had to travel from a place three or four miles away. The arrangements are so good with the London Passenger Transport Board that the district superintendent was called into conference with the manager of the factory on the Thursday and told that a bus would be needed to bring from point A to the factory 50 extra people on the Monday, that on the following Thursday there would be 50 more extra people,

and in the following week, 100 more. The district superintendent made the necessary arrangements and the buses were there for the people. The organisation of the London Passenger Transport Board is efficient. They have the buses and they have the men.
Admittedly there are a few transport problems in London, admittedly we grumble, for in these matters we are rather intolerant; but Londoners do not in general have to wait more than 10 or 12 minutes for a bus, whereas in the industrial North people have to wait an hour or an hour and a half. I see no reason why in these days the London Passenger Transport Board should have to worry their heads about people who must go out for a half-pint at the weekend and must have extra buses to take them home. I see no reason why the Board should have to hold an investigation to find out why so many people who went out of town to the suburbs for a particular dance were left behind. If people must do these things in these days, they ought to do as I do—I am content to walk home if I seek such relaxation late at night. But in the industrial North, the workers have a title to service. I appeal to Londoners to consider the position of those people. We have too many buses in Central London to-day.
While I was travelling along Oxford Street this morning I saw five buses which carried no more than 25 passengers between them. That would not happen in the industrial North. I suggest that just as the buses from provincial towns came to the aid of Londoners in such a valiant manner last winter, so Londoner's should now sacrifice some of their buses to help areas whose need is greater than theirs. Some 500 buses were brought to London last winter. Some of them were rackety, but they did great work, and they are, I believe, to be adorned with a brass plate in commemoration. In the suburbs generally there is a reasonably good supply of buses, but, as I have said, in Central London there are far too many. I suggest that the Minister should issue an appeal forthwith to the London Passenger Transport Board asking for buses. I believe he could requisition 500 in the next month, and these would help considerably to solve the problems in my division and the other places to which reference has been made to-day. The bus


driver of London is like the London policeman. He is a fine fellow, and I believe drivers would willingly volunteer to go with the buses. I ask the Minister to help us out of our difficulty, and to appeal to the London Passenger Transport Board to show the same kind of spirit as was shown by the provincial towns in sending help to London last winter. If he does this, he will earn the thanks of those in the provinces.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Colonel Llewellin): I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) for raising this topic. As he said, there are thousands more than usual who are now seeking transport. This is brought about by the fact that factories have been moved away from towns, and that people, have, therefore to travel away from their homes. We also have the problem of bringing people from hostels to factories, and soon we shall be faced with the difficulty of having the peak travelling period concentrated. This concentrated peak period arises out of the fact that the nights are lengthening. During the longer daylight factories work more overtime, and there is a better spread-over of the peak period. This problem of transport is an important one, because it goes to the very root of good production. You cannot get good production out of tired and discontented workers, and from workers who arrive at their factory in a slightly discontented mood. Increasing numbers of women are coming into our factories. They are not used to standing the whole day in a factory and therefore they do not wish to be kept waiting for transport to get them home.
This is not a problem which can be tackled in one way. It has to be tackled in different ways in different districts. The House may be glad to know that it is a problem to which I have given my personal attention. Only yesterday we held a meeting of all our Regional Transport Commissioners. I met them and discussed with them the different problems in their areas. There are, of course, limitations to what we can do. This is brought about by the extra number of people who wish to travel, by the shortage of road transport and by the shortage of spare parts. We are turning over a large part of our motor-manufacturing

capacity to the making of tanks and Army vehicles, and we cannot get the vehicles which ordinarily would be coming along at this time. We have the further problem that with the vast numbers of men which our Fighting Services require we are getting short of drivers and conductors. Do not let anyone think that we are completely inactive and that nothing is done until we see a report by the Select Committee on National Expenditure. Valuable as such a Report is, the Committee will find out that we have a lot of the things they recommend already in train. So far as we are concerned, carrying regulations can go by the board. They are going by the board, and we are certainly not going to be hedged in by any kind of red tape.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Does that apply to running rights?

Colonel Llewellin: Where running rights interfere with proper transport they will certainly be abolished. It must be remembered that in a great number of areas the people who have already operated these routes are the best people to run them. This is so not only from the management's point of view, but also from the driver's point of view. Drivers can work in contact with their homes, which is better than bringing in men from outside firms. We are trying, where there is a rail service between a factory and a town in which workers live, to get the workers to travel by rail rather than to take up our limited number of road-transport vehicles. In order to do that, we have had to take other steps, because workers' fares by rail are in some cases higher than bus fares. Everyone realises that before the war road transport was trying to undercut the railways.
We are determined to try and equalise these fares. Where there are two services which take the same distance, we shall do it by lessening the workmen's fares on the railway, as, of course, we can do under the new Agreement. Where the distances are unequal, that is to say, where the railway has to go round a longer distance, we shall try to get the employers to pay the difference, as has been done in some cases already, and we are getting the supply Departments concerned to impress the need for this upon private contractors. In this way I hope we shall get more people to travel by rail and so release our buses for other


routes. I know it is difficult in some cases, and some people do not like the inconvenience of having to walk a bit further when they get to their home town. They will have to put up with it, but they ought not to put up with paying the increased fare, and that we are trying to remedy.
The main remedy, of course, is the staggering of hours in factories. Here the London Regional Board has set an extremely good example and we are starting from that. The employers sometimes, and in other cases the workmen, object to it being done. It is obviously good for production that transport should be improved by staggering hours, so we hope to get both parties into line and to agree in the works. Where that cannot be done we shall have to put up our scheme to the Regional Production Board, and, where the Board is agreed on the scheme, directions will have to be given that it shall be carried out. In that way we shall be able to get this staggering carried into effect to the greatest extent. Staggering has not always got to be between one factory and another. In some cases it has to be between different parts of the same factory, because we get some factories where there is a very heavy load of 8,000 or 10,000 people, and by staggering the hours of work, just as the meal hours are staggered, we shall be able to economise in the number of buses needed to take people to and from those factories. I hope that employers and trade unionists and Members of Parliament will help us in this, which is the very best thing we can do, to see that we have enough transport this winter to carry our essential workers to and from the factories. Apart from that, we are trying out a scheme, in the North Midland Region first, of permits for workers. It was tried out at Mansfield, and on the trip from Mansfield to Nottingham on the first day it was in force 100 shoppers who had not got permits were left behind, on the second day 80, on the third day 50, and on the fourth day they had learned all about it and there were none. In that case it has worked, and, if it works successfully, together with the appeals we are making to people not to come back from shopping at the peak hours, we shall certainly see that it is extended further in the country. Nearly all workers have a weekly book of

tickets, which can be stamped in the factory.
We are also taking steps to get more vehicles made. They will not be as many as we want, but I think they are as many as we can reasonably demand, with the tremendous programme that the Ministry of Supply has for tanks and things of that kind. By the end of the year the Army, at our request, are returning us over 700 buses which they previously took up. We are converting a very large number of single-seater buses which previously took 32 people. The seats will now be round the sides of the bus and at the back so that they will take 32 seated, and we are allowing them to take 30 standing. I have travelled in one myself. Of course, it is rather a tight fit, but even so it is better. We are putting them on the short trips from factories into the towns, and it is better to have the people standing up in the bus than standing outside the factory waiting for another bus. We shall not put them on the long routes. They will go on the shorter hauls and in that way we shall economise. Normally, owing to the limits of the seating accommodation, they are extravagant, both in personnel, because they have to have a driver and conductor, and also in petrol. By converting them into buses which will take 62 people we shall avoid this extravagance and be able to take an additional load of persons to and from the factories.
We also hope we are going to get a better provision of spares, if the recommendations of the Rootes Committee are implemented, which will enable us to put some buses back on the road which have been taken off. We have now got the Essential Work Order applied to a very large number of firms running these passenger transport services, and that will mean that men do not drift away from the industry. I should like here to say what an important war industry it is, and that no one working in it need think that he is not pulling his weight in helping to win the war. At the moment we are not getting as many women volunteers for conductoresses as we want, because the glamour of the light blue or the dark blue or the khaki appeals to them more than standing or sitting in the back of a bus, but they are really doing just as good work for their country if they join up in our bus services and help to take people to and from our essential war factories as


they would be by volunteering for any type of war work.

Mr. T. Smith: They do not have time to sit in the buses mentioned by the Minister.

Colonel Llewellin: They are only standing for fairly short distances, but it is a war measure, and in the situation in which we are placed we have to adopt any expedient we can in order to fulfil one of our most important functions, which is to take people to and from essential work. We have taken several other small steps. We have stopped the unlimited travel tickets with which people could take more journeys than they required without having to pay for them. In some cases we have fixed a minimum fare so that people will walk the short distances and leave places on the buses for the longer stage journeys. A lot of people, for instance, get in a bus in London just to travel down Whitehall. Most people could easily walk that distance. We have, therefore, increased in some cases the minimum price tickets so as to encourage people to walk the short distances. There has been almost a revolution in Scotland. I do not know whether any of my hon. Friends from the Scottish Office have heard of it, but the minimum halfpenny fare in Aberdeen has been abolished, and they now have a penny minimum fare there as in other parts of the country.
We are discussing with the Home Office and shall probably do something about the question of getting shops and very likely cinemas in some of the towns which are congested from the traffic point of view not to open at the same time as there is a rush of traffic. I hope the House will be convinced that we are tackling this problem in many ways. My hon. Friend made one or two other points. It is not always as simple as it seems to deal with the empty buses which people see going about the streets. They are usually going on contract jobs. They have their timetables to keep to in order to take people to particular factories, and if they were always stopping en route to pick up anybody who hailed them, they would probably be late in taking a body of men from a particular place to an essential factory.

Mr. Ellis Smith: What about when they are coming away empty?

Colonel Llewellin: They are very likely bringing the men home. I know, however, that there are cases where they are returning to the garage empty, but where it is necessary and can be arranged the Regional Transport Commissioner has in such cases enabled them to pick up anybody who is going on the same route.

Mr. McNeil: If the local authority can satisfy the Department that the contract can be done on time, will they be prepared to give power to these buses to pick up?

Colonel Llewellin: Each case must be dealt with on its merits. The Regional Commissioners, who are the men in the local areas and a really capable lot of men, must deal with any case as it is brought to their notice. As a whole, of course, our object is to see that buses run full rather than empty. That should be the guiding principle.

Mr. McKinlay (Dumbartonshire): Is there any appeal from the Regional Commissioners' decision to the head of the Department? A case I have in mind is where buses run from the garage for three miles without passengers to the factory, and they could rightly pick up passengers on the way.

Colonel Llewellin: The best thing for any hon. Member who has a point like that is to write to me. Either the Minister or I can override the decision of a Regional Traffic Commissioner. I hope that hon. Members will take up particular cases, because our aim is all the same, which is to have the most efficient transport. Although Regional Transport Commissioners as a body are extremely good, I hope that when hon. Members get this kind of point they will bring it to me. I assure hon. Members that I go into these questions fully myself and get a full explanation. That is by far the best way of dealing with individual cases.
My hon. Friend mentioned the question of buses from the seaside resorts. We have already taken a large number away, but we have now completely abolished the basic ration for passenger transport vehicles, so that a vehicle will get petrol only if it is required for essential purposes. We are bringing more and more vehicles from districts where they are not fully utilised to the districts where traffic is congested.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Do I understand that the Ministry have abolished the basic ration for every vehicle?

Colonel Llewelin: We have abolished as from a date in September the basic ration for public service vehicles, and we have taken vehicles away from parts of the country where they are not fully used and sent them to other parts. We shall go on doing that. With regard to the particular points about my hon. Friend's area, we have set up a consultative committee for the Potteries which is fully representative of all interests including the trade unions. It is having its first meeting on 16th September. The Regional Transport Commissioner will be there and will investigate any specific complaints. He says, however, that the lack of colliery services is not such as to cause absenteeism, but we have recently adjusted the timings so as to make it easier for colliers, to get to the mines.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I would like to ask whether instructions have gone out to all local authorities and other operating concerns to meet together with a view to coordinating the services wherever possible and to cutting out overlapping?.

Colonel Llewellin: There are advisory committees with whom the Regional Transport Commissioner can and does investigate these matters, and any local authority or person can bring cases before the Commissioner or the committee. Not all the local authorities are represented on the committee, but they can always make representations. I can undertake that the Commissioners will investigate any cases that are brought before them in this way and do the best they can.
Turning to the question of road accidents, it is deplorable to note how they have been increasing of late, and it is remarkable that the fewer the number of vehicles there are on the road the higher the accident rate seems to rise. It is very difficult to know what to do about it. We met the Society for the Prevention of Accidents the other day, and we have now constituted a committee of the Society— the Safety First people are included—and the officials of the Ministry, who are going into the subject point by point to see what can be done to improve matters, and I am taking the chair at the meetings. I believe the increase in accidents is due largely to the fact that in war-time un-

fortunately people are—necessarily perhaps—a little more reckless of life and limb. Further, we cannot have the same police supervision. Some of the police patrols who check bad road behaviour have had to be taken off owing to the pressure of other duties, but the police are giving all the supervision they can having regard to the depleted personnel available for this purpose.
The House can rest assured that by propaganda or by any other steps we can take we shall do our best to try to see that road accidents are diminished. They are due, really, to thoughtlessness and carelessness on the part of all road users, because just as there are those who drive madly round corners in their cars there are pedestrians who step off the pavement right in front of a motor car without having troubled to look to see what traffic was coming along. In my view all road users are in part to blame for this increase in road accidents. The lectures which were given to children in schools with a view to equipping them with road sense were for a time abolished, under war conditions, but the House will be glad 1o hear that they are being reinstated during the autumn school term now beginning.
My hon. Friend the Member for Don-caster (Mr. E. Walkden) put one or two points about a Question which unfortunately was not reached earlier to-day concerning the abolition of first-class accommodation on suburban railway trains. That change will apply to any train whose journey is made—beginning and terminating—in the London Passenger Transport area. In one or two instances it applies also to trains going beyond the area— to Bedford, to Bletchley, to Brackley and, on the Great Western, to Reading. In the East, the limit ends at Witham. That does not mean that the fast, long-distance trains which may stop at Willesden, or Surbiton, or Ealing, or Southall will not have first-class carriages—if they go right through to a far destination. The trains that will be affected will be suburban trains in the area of the London Passenger Transport Board, and on them there will be only the one class.

Mr. E. Walkden: What are known as the local trains.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Will the change apply to other areas where it is required?

Colonel Llewellin: London is the main problem. There is not a heavy suburban


railway traffic comparable to that in and out of London in the case of any other city in the country. There are a few other districts in which there is a big daily exodus and entry, but there very large numbers of people use trams or buses.

Mr. Ellis Smith: But where it is proved that action on similar lines is required, will the Minister be prepared to take action?

Colonel Llewellin: We shall be prepared to look into any case. I was asked whether I could say what increase there would be in the numbers of people who would find accommodation in the trains when this change comes about. Those suburban trains have been so crowded in the past that I really doubt whether there will be any great increase in the numbers that can be carried by them. I cannot give any estimate of the additional number, because I have not got it, and it will depend to some extent on the new arrangements which accompany the change. In some cases it will mean that completely new train-sets will have to be made up, composed entirely of third-class coaches, and in some cases the old first-class compartments will be converted— having the arm rests nailed back so that they can take more passengers on each side. The hon. Member also raised the question of there being too many buses in Central London. I will go into that. As the House knows, we borrowed some 700 buses from the provinces at one time, and we have now returned them all. If we had to take those buses again we should have to take the drivers with them, because to-day there is an even greater shortage of drivers than of buses.
We have a big problem before us, and we shall need the co-operation of everyone to try to cope with it during the coming winter. I lay particular emphasis on the staggering of hours in factories, and we should be glad if all would use their influence to get that plan extended. We would much rather do it by voluntary effort on the part of all in the factories than by having to make an Order. It is a way in which we can definitely economise transport, and we aim to go all out to achieve it. If any hon. Member can help us in that, or in any other way, we shall be very glad of his assistance. If individual difficulties arise in the constituencies of hon. Members they can rest

assured that if they are brought to our attention we will go fully into them.

Mr. Benjamin Smith: I think the House has been pleased to hear the excellent survey which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport has given us. I should like to add a comment with regard to the staggering of hours. For some time I have been going round factories working for the Ministry of Aircraft Production. What I find is that some firms have decided without consultation with other firms as to what hours they will work. The net result is that the others are not able to choose, but have to take what is left. You practically negative any assistance from them in staggering hours. Then there are among workpeople those who have the omnibus mind and those who have the railway mind. When you talk to them about diverting traffic to the railways they will only give you their experience of railway services as against omnibus services. I would like to put it to the Minister that he should look into the matter from the point of view of getting agreement about staggering hours as a whole in many districts and, having got agreement on that, to tell the Regional Commissioner's office to fit transport services to meet the hours. Whatever arrangements are made, it is far better to have a scheme which enables you to say, "Here is the district, here are the agreed hours, now adapt transport to those hours." It is much better than trying to do it on a voluntary basis and from the transport angle.
There is a second point arising from factory dispersal. A great deal of dispersal is going on, and I hope the Minister will look into the position which sometimes arises from that. Very often the onus is put on the factory concerned to provide transport for the workers. I am thinking of a particular firm which had to hire passenger vehicles to take workers to the factory and take them home again. Those vehicles were out of commission for the rest of the day. That at any rate was the position a month ago when I was last in the neighbourhood. If the onus is put on the factory to provide transport, you get vehicles kept out of service for the greater part of the day, and I would ask the Minister to look into the matter from that angle. It should be the duty of the Regional Commissioner to meet


such exigencies as they arise from the pool of transport, and it should not be left to the employer to find vehicles.
There is one other aspect to which I would like to call attention. Hon. Members behind me are very good trade unionists. I would not say a word against them in their own industries. But when this transport is provided somebody has to drive the vehicles and somebody has to conduct them. If you stagger hours over a longer period, you will have to consider the hours of the people who have to drive the vehicles. Men cannot be given a spread-over from six o'clock in the morning until the last person has finished work at night. Whatever is done with a view to staggering hours and getting efficient transport for the workers I hope regard will be paid to the working conditions of those operating the transport.

Colonel Llewellin: If I may be allowed to say a word in reply to my hon. Friend, of course we shall consider the points he has made. There are cases where vehicles are used only for four, five, or six hours, but we try to use them for a full day whenever possible. With regard to the hon. Member's first point, I will only say that our idea now is to get a scheme for the whole of a town and put it before the Regional Board. If it is agreed to, then and then only will it be possible to ask the Ministry to take action. With the idea that transport is to be put last, I disagree. You have to consider how you can fit in your trains and buses before you can start the scheme for staggering.

POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION, SCOTLAND (COUNCIL).

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I would like to refer to the very interesting statement made earlier in this Sitting by the Secretary of State for Scotland about the formation of a new body or Council to examine post-war Scottish problems. That body is to contain representatives of all political parties in the country, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a very ingenious scheme. I am very glad that he has confined himself to a political personnel and has not, as has been the case so often in the past, sought refuge in handing over the problem to outside or so-called economic experts or interests, even to such a body as the Scottish De-

velopment Council. I am very glad, because this business of considering a post-war Scotland is a politician's job, or at least it will ultimately become a politician's responsibility. No matter what scheme is prepared by an outside body, however brilliantly thought out it may be, it will stand no ghost of a chance of being put into practical effect unless politicians accept it and It is approved by this House. My right hon. Friend has produced at the very origin of the scheme a group of political persons, and the assumption is that out of the work of that body will come a scheme—at least, I hope so—that will be generally acceptable to the politically-minded people of Scotland. I think in that respect he has done a sound piece of work. I have no complaint to make of the composition of this new body, nor of the proposal that they shall hand over the actual business of inquiry to outside ad hoc committees, but if this new body is to win the good-will and enthusiasm of Scotland, then I feel that he must tell us, if not to-day, at an early date, a good deal more than he did at Question Time. He should tell us what duties are to be given to this body, what kind of work it will have to do and how it will do it. He should tell us the tempo of its labours.
I would call his attention particularly to this question of tempo. Are the inquiries of this Council to be confined entirely to post-war problems? I rather gather from what he said that that will be so. Are the schemes which it will frame to be schemes to be put into effect only after the war? If that is so—and I am afraid it must be so—surely there is a very great danger that the existence of this Council, with its various committees of inquiry, will be seized upon by the Government, as other bodies have been seized upon by every Government I have ever heard of, to postpone what ought to be done immediately. I was not a Member of this House when the late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald was Prime Minister, but the House will remember, no doubt, that every problem which was put up to the Government was shelved—or so it seemed to us outside—by being handed over to a committee of inquiry. In 18 months there were more committees of inquiry appointed than at any other time. I make bold to say that two or three of us sitting together could very easily cull from


the scores of reports of those committees of inquiry enough material to form a policy. I am afraid of the possibilities of postponement, inherent in the setting-up of this body, of things which are absolutely necessary now.
For example, yesterday we discussed a Bill containing a proposal for a new scheme of hydro-electric development in the Highlands of Scotland. I am not competent to say whether the Bill was entirely good or bad. Experts tell me that one or two Amendments relating to electrical matters would have had to be made. We turned down that Bill yesterday, principally on the ground put forward by the Secretary of State for Scotland that he proposed to make an inquiry into the matter. There were, of course, different grounds in the minds of some hon. Members, such as the objection to a private company carrying out such operations. I understood the Government's reason to be that they were to make an inquiry and they did not want difficulties to be put in the way of any ultimate scheme. In other words, the Government used the body which it was proposed to set up in order to postpone something which would have been of the greatest and almost immediate value to Scotland. I do not say the Bill was perfect, but if it had been passed, we had the assurance that, when the war finished, in a year or two say, at that very moment the electricity scheme would have been started. One fears that by turning down the Bill and the adoption of that method by the Government, it will be five years before a single unit of electricity is created in the Highlands. If the right hon. Gentleman can assure me that that is not likely to happen, nobody will be more pleased than I, but I have seen Governments seizing every excuse to put off good and necessary projects, and I cannot help feeling a little fearful in these matters.
What kind of subject is the new Council to examine? What is to be the relation between it and other bodies already set up by Parliament to examine post-war problems? I hope I am a good Scotsman. I have great sympathy with the Nationalists, but we cannot consider Scottish problems in vacuo. Scarcely one question affecting our native land is not at some point intimately connected with the organisation existing in England.

Mr. Sloan: No.

Mr. Henderson: Stewart: I am sure that if he will listen, my hon. Friend will agree with me. Take transport. Surely you cannot consider Scottish transport as if it was in a little corner cut off from the world. Transport in Scotland must be bound up with the transport system south of the Border. Take the question also of the location of industry. Surely no one is going to say that you can take Scotland in a little corner by herself and settle that problem, leaving England out of it altogether. It is impossible. You must consider the whole country in a problem of that kind. Even the problem of electrical development cannot be considered within the confines of the borders of Scotland. That is why I press my right hon. Friend to tell us what will be the relations between this new body and Lord Reith's Ministry and that of the Minister without Portfolio, to name only two, because those two Ministries have been authorised by Parliament to do much of the work which one conceives this Council may also be doing. I myself feel that before this new body in Scotland can start considering its work its relationship with these English Ministries ought to be made crystal clear.
I offer the House a further reason. One would regret it exceedingly, supposing one or two expert committees to be appointed which after much labour issued some excellent reports, if those reports had to be scrapped—as so many dozens of other reports in Scotland have had to be scrapped—because the solution offered did not ultimately fit in with the Great Britain solution which might be adopted by this House. That is a very practical point, and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State could advise us on that score. I do not want to take up the time of the House any longer, although there are many other questions I should have liked to ask. I know my right hon. Friend naturally cannot have had too much time in which to consider this, and I do not want to press it, but these are fundamental questions to which, either to-day or at some very early date, he ought to give full and specified answers.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): I am very grateful to the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) for the courteous way in which he has stated the difficulties he his desired to raise. May I again say to the House roughly what the position is? It is generally felt that the Government ought


to prepare for the post-war years. Everybody is agreed that something in the nature of post-war planning should take place, but unfortunately very few people are agreed as to what form this post-war planning should take, and the Government have set up three separate organisations by which we hope the whole field will be covered. There is first the responsibility of the Minister without Portfolio, who has to consider all aspects of post-war problems, including the whole future of relationships outside this country which will have to be faced in the post-war years. He will deal, for example, with the import of foodstuffs. Then there is the Minister of Works and Buildings, Lord Reith, who is charged with responsibility for long-term planning in the sphere of physical reconstruction of this country after the war. Lord Reith's duties have been clearly stated in the House of Lords in a Debate which took place on 17th July.
Then there is a Council of Ministers presided over by Lord Reith, the members of which are the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland. They were charged with a simple and rather limited duty. They were to ensure that the administration of the town and country planning Acts and any legislation implementing the recommendations made in the first Report of the Uthwatt Committee should proceed in conformity with long-term planning policy as it is progressively developed. That is to say, no reconstruction which takes place now, such as in Coventry, for example, shall be permitted by the Ministers who are responsible for town and country planning unless it is in conformity with what it is conceived to be with the long-term planning which Lord Reith and his Department are considering. That is the sole purpose of this Council of Ministers. I think I may say that measures will very shortly be brought into this House to implement the first Report of the Uthwatt Committee, and they will be brought in by the Minister of Health, so far as England and Wales are concerned, and by myself so far as Scotland is concerned.
I hope that is a picture of what is roughly the Government's present intention. But we in Scotland have a particular responsibility. It is quite true, as my hon. Friend said, that you cannot discuss problems in vacuo. You cannot discuss Scottish problems without con-

sidering their impact on English problems. There are also specialist problems which we have in Scotland—herrings, argricultural problems, hill sheep problems, gas grid and so on—

Mr. McKinlay (Dumbartonshire): Grey seals.

Mr. Johnston: That is a matter on which I hope we shall not be required to set up a specialist committee. We have specialist problems in Scotland, and it is our duty to make the necessary arrangements for inquiring into these problems with a view to preparing legislation to meet them. When I came to consider the setting-up the Advisory Committee the announcement of which was made by Lord Reith in another place, I had to face the fact that with the best will in the world, to set up a committee for which I alone was responsible for filling the personnel might weaken its authority in dealing with the important questions to which I have referred.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Major Dugdale.]

Mr. Johnston: If questions of that kind were to be investigated by committees of such a character, it is important that the committees should be impartial, and, more than that, that they should appear to be impartial—that they should not only be like Cæsar's wife, but something more. In my view that could be achieved only by associating with the present Secretary of State for Scotland, with his political background, ex-Secretaries of State for Scotland. Those right hon. Gentlemen have readily agreed to help. The first task is to select the immediate subjects for inquiry. We shall then settle the personnel. Then we hope to get the reports as quickly as possible. If we can secure the assent of these ex-Secretaries of State in general, with the reports of these expert committees, I think that we shall have a better chance than ever we have had before in history of getting any necessary legislation through, implementing these reports. I hope my hon. Friend will agree with me that once these reports are implemented and brought forward to this House, this, instead of being a method of delaying legislation, will be the finest


method of ensuring urgent and speedy passage of legislation which we believe may be urgently necessary.
My hon. Friend asks what kind of subjects these committees will consider. It would obviously be improper for me to suggest what subjects would have priority until I am in a position to discuss the matter with these gentlemen themselves, but I can assure the House that I have given a great deal of thought to the matter, and I have proposed this scheme in the confident hope that, so far from meaning delay, it will mean expedition. I hope that, on reflection, my hon. Friend will agree. He asked, What about our relationships with other bodies? As I said this morning, the work of the Council over which I shall preside will be carried on in close touch with the organisation set up by the Government, for the purpose of examining all post-war problems as a whole. But there are particular problems we have to face, and we must meet them or we perish. My hon. Friend himself was in a deputation which came to me to-day about one of them. If we do not meet these problems, we may find that Scotia is deserted. There are industries in Scotland which in peacetime are perilously near decay, and it is our duty, with the aid of scientists, technicians, business men, trade unionists and everybody concerned, pulling together, to place these industries and the life of our people on a more secure and economic basis than they have been. I do not want to suggest in this House or anywhere else what kind of subjects we should deal with. It may be Highland development, which, as my hon. Friend knows, is a most important subject, or it may be hill sheep farming, electricity and gas.

Sir Percy Hurd: Will an opportunity be taken for members of the Saltire Society and the Scottish Development Council of Scotland, and others interested, who take a deep interest in these questions, to put their views before the Council?

Mr. Johnston: Certainly, but this Council cannot itself hear evidence. It can only appoint the personnel for the various commissions of inquiry, and I should think that these commissions will be most lacking in their duty if they do not take evidence from every possible source from which they could obtain competent evidence. The Council will not ad-

minister anything or take away from the responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Government. It will only be a guarantee and assurance to the people of Scotland that all parties will weigh in in a co-operative manner to assist in making immediate post-war reconstruction in Scotland.
My hon. Friend sought with considerable ingenuity to raise again the question which was discussed yesterday—the hydro-electricity scheme. Well, the major difficulty I had about that scheme, was not the one which he adumbrated today. It was not that we should require to see the Grampian scheme fitted into Scotland as a whole, although that was one part of my difficulty. It was that we were asked yesterday to hand over natural assets and resources to a private corporation for 75 years, when there was no possible chance of these assets being operated in the meantime. Therefore, it was desirable that we should defer our decision on the gravity of the issue until such time as that part of our resources could be fitted into the scheme as a whole. I do not want to argue the rights or wrongs of that; I had my say on that matter yesterday. I only want to assure my hon. Friend and the House that what we are proposing to do may be novel and daring, but it is in conformity with the whole "spirit and purpose which are animating this nation now. The nation is united at this moment, and we seek only to carry into our postwar arrangements that spirit of national unity and collaboration upon which this Government is founded.

UNITED STATES AND THE WAR.

Captain Cunningham-Reid (St. Maryle-bone): As I was prevented yesterday, unnecessarily, from completing my speech on the Motion for the Adjournment, I intend to attempt to do so to-day. It is somewhat of a novel departure, but it seems to me that I have to complete my speeches in serial form. The Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to whom I intimated that I was going to raise this matter to-day, asked me to state to the House that if it was possible for him to do so, he would be present.
As to my second instalment, I do not know whether the House is aware that the Isolationist organisation in the United States of America, which is known as the "America-First Committee," has during the last month increased its membership


from 10,450,000 to just over 15,000,000. I think it will be agreed that for a single organisation that represents a very large membership, especially as they are all paying members, and that even for a country with a population as extensive as that of America, an organisation with a membership of that size is enormous. It was also last month, I ask hon. Members to recollect, that the Isolationists in Congress only missed defeating the supporters of President Roosevelt by one vote. Raymond Gram Swing recently wrote in the "Sunday Express":
A tendency is discernible to consider this as Roosevelt's war, not America's. There was no resounding response to the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting.
Hitler is well aware of the trend of public opinion in the United States of America. It only requires elementary reasoning on his part to appreciate that after his Russian campaign, whatever the outcome, an obvious move for him will be to make a peace offer which will be for him, '' Heads I win, tails you lose," because in the unlikely event of its being accepted he would be on velvet, and if it were turned down by us, as most certainly it would be, the Isolationists would make capital out of the cry, "Those obstinate British will not even listen to an offer of peace, and yet' they expect us to go on helping them and so drag us into the war." We should recollect that the masses in America have an all-absorbing desire to avoid going to war and to be able to continue leading their normal lives—a very natural instinct. They are so far away from Europe that they are not intimately concerned with what happens to individual European countries, any more than the masses in this country are concerned with what happens in the Chinese war. Then again, not having experienced the horrors of being bombed, they have no particular revengeful feelings. All they want is for the fighting to cease so that they cannot be involved and their menfolk killed. Miss Dorothy Thompson, that well-known and popular American visitor who was over here a short time ago, and who gave one or two interesting and intelligent talks on the radio, said, last year, at a mass meeting at Lake Placid, at which I was present:
We in America suffer from having no popular education in world affairs. One has to explain to the masses the reason for things; but that takes time.

That goes to bear out my plea, that from now onwards, and by all the means at our disposal, we should spend much money and energy, and concentrate on enlightening the American people as a whole, who are not so close to realism as we are, as to the dangers and pains that can be expected from even nibbling at an apple that may look so tempting, but which, in fact, will be rotten to the core. By doing this we shall be forestalling dangerous Isolationist propaganda, and helping the best friend that this country has ever had—President Roosevelt. I know that we are doing a certain amount in this direction, but I also know that we are not doing enough What are we going to do if American public opinion swings away from us to such an extent that their assistance becomes so half-hearted that it is quite inadequate for us to be able to continue the war successfully? It is no good saying that that could not possibly happen, because the signs, as I have attempted to indicate, have not only appeared but are increasing. Whatever the official view may be, the recent sinkings of American ships only make the masses in America the more apprehensive that they may be drawn into the war, and make them long for peace all the more. The incidents are by no means sufficient to make them clamour for war.
One does not have to be a student of psychology to realise that it is a hundred times easier to influence people before they have made up their mind than after. A cleverly manipulated German peace offensive may be very difficult to catch up with in America. The sudden arrival of the possibility of peace will obscure the better judgment of many, unless the snags of a premature peace have been drummed in again and again. Therefore, there is not one moment to be lost, because these peace terms are certainly coming sooner or later.
Much to my surprise after three abortive attempts I have been allowed to complete a speech in this House. I would suggest that if any Member reading the OFFICIAL REPORT is interested in the information I have given, he would be good enough to glance through my first instalment of yesterday. Further contributions will be continued in my next, Whips permitting.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.